MR. DUM BROWNE'S 



EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 
/ 



)) 



Htiiarptt from tt)e Sprmaft'ei^ 3kepuoltcan. 



BOSTON: 

PUBLISHED BY JOHN P. JEWETT AND COMPANY. 

CLEVELAND, OHIO: H. P. B. JEWETT. 

185 7. 



• j 




LIBRARY! 
OF CONGRESS 



WASHINGTON 



Entered according to Act of Congress in the year 1857, by 

JOHN P. JEWETT AND COMPANY, 

In the Clerk's Office of the District Court for the District of Massachusetts. 



CAMBRIDGE: 
ALLEN AND FARNHAM, PRINTERS. 






I 6 ? 



INTRODUCTORY EPISTLE. 



Many of the inferior animals are migratory as it were in 
the positive degree ; man is migratory in the comparative 
degree ; and the Yankee is the most superlatively migratory 
of all animals, biped, quadruped, or centipede ; winged, fin- 
ned, or scaled; that are in the heavens above, or in the 
earth beneath, or in the waters under the earth. 

Being then a genuine, Massachusetts, Connecticut River 
Valley Yankee by birth and education, I am of course a 
traveller by right as well as by choice. In order to be able 
to appreciate fully the advantages of being born in that fa- 
vored spot, by comparing it with other regions more or less 
remote, I have wandered rather extensively up and down 
our own fair land, " out West " and " down East," to say 
nothing about the " sunny South ; " and am now about to 
enlarge my view by crossing the Atlantic ; in other words, 
to complete my sphere of observation by taking in the other 
^em^-sphere. Divesting myself of prejudice and investing 
myself with as many of the attributes of wisdom as possible, 



IV INTRODUCTORY EPISTLE. 

I shall endeavor to contemplate the institutions of the Old 
"World with the eye of a philosopher, to behold her ancient 
ruins with the eye of an antiquary, to view the grand ob- 
jects in nature with a poet's eye and the great works of the 
old masters with an artist's eye, to scan the operations at 
the seat of war with the eye military, and the movements 
in the political arena with the eye diplomatic ; in short to 
keep wide open my eye financial, agricultural, commercial, 
architectural, legal, critical, metaphysical, and quizzical. I 
shall also take a bird's eye view of the feathered tribes, 
cast a sheep's eye at the flocks and herds, and obtain dissolv- 
ing views of the beet sugar crop and salt mines. 

I shall general-eyes, and particularises, real-eyes, and 
ideal-eyes, scrutin-eyes, anal-eyes, very likely moral-eyes, and 
possibly satir-eyes, and dramat-eyes. I shall not lion-eyes, 
nor probably botan-eyes, geolog-eyes or natural-eyes in any 
way. But I will not victim-eyes you any longer with this 
train of eye-deas. 

In order that the Old World may appear as young and 
fresh as practicable, the " mirror held up to nature " will be 
kept bright and free from specks so far as may be, but no 
rouge will be laid on the face of the old lady, and no artifi- 
cial helps resorted to, to improve her beauty ; no milliner's 
fripperies, trinkets, and jewels, but a simple dress. Mine 
shall be a " plain, unvarnished tale : " no quips and quiddi- 
ties, sly inuendoes and oddities of language to disturb the 
digestion of an after dinner reading. If a joke is intended 



INTRODUCTORY EPISTLE. V 

it will be brought out fair and above-board, with a good 
honest breathing-place for the laugh. The philosophical 
and metaphysical speculations will be clothed in words of 
seven syllables and upwards with no conjunctions shorter 
than "nevertheless" and "notwithstanding:" while the more 
familiar chit-chat will of course be done up in the simplest 
language, or if any word or phrase should chance to have 
more than one meaning, the extra one will be thrown in 
gratis, without any extra charge. The similes, tropes, and 
figures used will all be of the strictest rhetorical orthodoxy ; 
not a metaphor admitted but will be warranted tame as any 
sheep. The didactic, historical, and moral discourses will 
appear of course in their appropriate, grave, and serious 
costume. The poetry will be easily distinguishable by the 
capital letters at the commencement of each line, as well as 
by the capital words and thoughts that run through each 
line ; while the " fine " sentences in prose (to suit the con- 
venience of those who love that style of writing) will be 
marked at the end with a little point called, in punctuation, 
a period, at each of which the reader will be able, and is 
hereby requested, to stop (long enough to count four) and 
admire. 

In treating of the Irish, naturally enough, a bull may be 
frequently expected ; in writing from London, the " haitches " 
and the " wes " may be hoccasionally taken liberties vith ; 
in France my expressions will perhaps be sometimes 
" vine-clad " like her own hills. From the summit of Mont 

A* 



VI INTRODUCTORY EPISTLE. 

Blanc, seated on an ice bank, I shall write you a cool epis- 
tle, from the apex of the Cheops Pyramid a pointed one, 
and from the Bridge of Sighs of course a doleful one. With 
these brief explanations it is hoped that most readers of 
common sense will be able to follow the thread of the dis- 
course with ease, or, if they do occasionally wander off the 
track, will succeed in regaining it, so that, though they lose 
themselves, yet at the end of their journey, at least, they 
shall find themselves 'Very respectfully, 

Dunn Browne. 



CONTENTS 



CHAPTER I. page 

WEIGHS ANCHOR 1 

CHAPTER II. 

COMES TO SOUNDINGS 6 

CHAPTER IH. 

TERRESTRIAL SEA-SICKNESS 11 

CHAPTER IV. 

THE CITY OF PRINCE BLADUD 16 

CHAPTER V. 
IN "town" 20 

CHAPTER VI. 

LEAVES " TOWN " 25 

CHAPTER VII. 

" UNDERGROUND RAILROAD " TO PARIS 30 

CHAPTER VIII. 

FRENCH TALKING AND TALKING FRENCH 34 

CHAPTER IX. 

PARIS BY GASLIGHT AND BY DAYLIGHT 38 



viu CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER X. 

KNICK-KNACKS 42 

CHAPTER XI. 

THE CHURCHES OF PARIS 46 

CHAPTER XII. 

MUSEUMS AND ART IN PARIS 50 

CHAPTER XIII. 

HIS FEELINGS ARE TOO MANT FOR HIM 54 

CHAPTER XIV. 

THE EXPOSITION AND THE EMPEROR 58 

CHAPTER XV. 

WOMEN, RABIES AND DOGS .62 

CHAPTER XVI. 

" DEMANDS HIS PASSPORTS," NOT BEING INVITED TO A GREAT PUB- 
LIC FESTIVAL 66 

CHAPTER XVII. 

WAITING AT THE STATION 70 

CHAPTER XVIII. 

BRUSSELS, (WITH WATERLOO OMITTED,) 74 

CHAPTER XIX. 

COLOGNE 78 

CHAPTER XX. 

GERMAN RAILWAYS AND FIRES 82 

CHAPTER XXI. 

\J A UNIVERSITY TOWN 86 



CONTENTS. IX 

CHAPTER XXII. 

CHRISTMAS AT THE " KRONE " 91 

CHAPTER XXIII. 

STARTS FOR THE ORIENT 95 

CHAPTER XXIV. 

ERFURT TO DRESDEN 99 

CHAPTER XXV. 

DRESDEN, THE SPLENDID 103 

CHAPTER XXVI. 

PRAGUE, THE HOMELY 107 

CHAPTER XXVII. 

A DOOR OPENS, AND SHUTS AGAIN 112 

CHAPTER XXVIII. 

VIENNA, THE MAGNIFICENT .116 

CHAPTER XXIX. 

TRIESTE AND VENICE, PROSE AND POETRY 121 

CHAPTER XXX. 

SUMMIT OF THE CHEOPS PYRAMID 126 

CHAPTER XXXI. 

INTRODUCES YOU TO SUNDRY INTERESTING PEOPLE 131 

CHAPTER XXXII. 

A VOICE FROM THE TOMBS 136 

CHAPTER XXXIII. 

CAIRO, THE PICTURESQUE 141 



X CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER XXXIV. 

JOHN BULL SEES MORE THAN HE BARGAINED FOR 146 

CHAPTER XXXV. 

ALEXANDRIA TO JERUSALEM 151 

CHAPTER XXXVI. 

THE HOLY CITY 156 

CHAPTER XXXVII. 

MARE ASPHALTICUM 162 

CHAPTER XXXVIII. 

DOES NOT " TARRY AT JERICHO " 168 

CHAPTER XXXIX. 

SAMARIA AND GALILEE 173 

CHAPTER XL. 

OVERLAND TO BEYROUT 178 

CHAPTER XLI. 

THE .EGEAN AND THE DARDANELLES . . . 182 

CHAPTER XLII. 

THE CRIMEA . 189 

CHAPTER XLIII. 

MODERN RUINS 195 

CHAPTER XLIV. 

DOWN THE MEDITERRANEAN 199 

CHAPTER XLV. 

ATHENS 203 



CONTENTS. XI 

CHAPTER XL VI. 

QUARANTINE 207 

CHAPTER XLVII. 

RETROSPECTIVE FROM THE ETERNAL CITY .........211 

CHAPTER XLVIII. 

IN A VETTURA 217 

CHAPTER XLIX. 

HERETICAL VIEWS ON THE SUBJECT OF RUINS 221 

CHAPTER L. 

FLORENCE, THE BEAUTIFUL 227 

CHAPTER LI. 

THE BIRTH-PLACE OF COLUMBUS 281 

CHAPTER LII. 

THE NIGHT DILIGENCE 235 

CHAPTER LIII. 

ON FOOT AMONG THE ALPS 239 

CHAPTER LIV. 

INDEPENDENCE AMONG THE CLOUDS 243 

CHAPTER LV. 

DOWN THE RHINE 247 

CHAPTER LVI. 

REPOSES IN HOLLAND 252 

CHAPTER LVIL 

UTTERLY DISREGARDS THE CONSEQUENCES 257 



Xll CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER LVIII. 

MERRIE ENGLAND 261 

CHAPTER LIX. 

ENGLISH UNIVERSITY TOWNS 265 

CHAPTER LX. 

THE JEDBURG BORDER GAMES 270 

CHAPTER LXL 

EDINBORO, THE LITERARY 276 

CHAPTER LXIL 

IN AN IRISH JAUNTING CAR 281 

CHAPTER LXIIL 

ANOTHER TASTE OF THE BRINE 286 

CHAPTER LXIV. 

EXPERIENCES IN HIS NATIVE LAND 291 

CHAPTER LXV. 

THE BEST, BECAUSE IT IS THE LAST 296 



MR. DUNN BROWNE'S EXPERIENCES IN 
FOREIGN PARTS. 



CHAPTER I. 

WEIGHS ANCHOR. 

Atlantic Ocean (top of it and pretty well along towards the east side). ) 
On board cupper ship Quickstep, Sept. 18, 1855. J. 

After several days of delay beyond the appointed 
time of sailing, owing partly to man, (want of men,) 
and partly to Providence, (want of wind,) we did 
finally succeed in sailing from the quarantine sta- 
tion in New York harbor on Monday, August 27th. 
The pilot, appearing on board early in the morning, 
in spite of a rather unfavorable wind and an im- 
mense amount of swearing, (I could hardly tell which 
was the greater obstacle to the execution of his or- 
ders,) was successful in taking us out of the beauti- 
ful bay into the open sea. Since, one o'clock the 
same day, we have seen no land except that portion 

1 



2 mr. dunn Browne's 

of our native soil which still remains on the faces of 
some of the sailors. But we hope, if our favorable 
wind holds, to make Land's End to-morrow, and 
London early next week. However this is all guess- 
work with us, (passengers,) for the officers of the 
ship take particular pains to tell us the most ridicu- 
lous and conflicting stories as to our whereabouts 
and progress. This, and frightening the women with 
fearful tales of the dangers of the sea, constitute their 
idea of wit in its highest development. 

First day out : Strong N. E. wind, which, as that 
was precisely the direction we wished to go, was not 
on the whole favorable to our progress. The ship 
persisted in leaning over at an angle of 45°, so that 
you could walk with equal ease on the floor and on 
the leeward side of the cabin. Passengers were to 
be seen leaning over the bulwarks contemplating the 
ocean waves with signs of deep emotion, and occa- 
sional outpourings of feeling very touching to the 
beholder. Second day : Precisely similar to the first. 
Third day : If any thing a little more so ; the wind a 
little stronger ; the ship a little steeper, and the pas- 
sengers a little sicker; every thing, in short, slightly 
aggravated. The evening was delightful. Sat sev- 
eral hours at the stern in the moonlight, watching 
the bubbles of fire in the waves, and musing upon 



EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. S 

home and friends. " Sail on the lee bow," shouted 
the look-out, and gradually a dark shadow became 
visible in the dim distance, glided like a spectre 
slowly past, and vanished. "Waxing decidedly poet- 
ical under the combined influence of the moon, the 
waves, and the phantom ship, I was recalled to the 
realms of the real by a huge wave leaping over the 
taffrail and depositing at least a barrel of the " briny" 
in my lap. Thus pickled I retired dripping to my 
state-room, " a wiser and wetter man." Fourth day : 
A lurch of the ship sent three cups of coffee, two 
men, (one pf whom was not your humble servant, 
the other was,) one bowl of sugar, a woman and 
baby, three plates of ham, one hairbrush, six roasted 
potatoes, a jar of pickles, and a wash basin of water 
with a soapy boy in it, all into a corner of the cabin 
together. Selecting ourselves out of that heap of 
miscellaneous articles, and leaving the rest to be 
picked up by the steward, resumed our breakfast as 
if nothing had happened. Smart ship is the old 
Quickstep, only rather playful. 

The first few days are a fair sample of the whole 
passage hitherto, fair, beautiful, dull, and stupid in 
the extreme. Life at sea is very poetical one hour 
perhaps out of the twenty-four, but prosaic enough 
the other twenty-three ; may answer very well one 
day in the week, but deliver me from the other six. 



4 MR. DUNN BROWNE'S 

We are but a dozen of us, passengers, mostly 
Cockneys returning in disgust from a brief sojourn 
in Yankee land to blessed Hold Hengland, the 'orae 
of their hinfancy. Every one of us disagreeing with 
every other one on all possible subjects, we yet live 
together in great harmony, performing mutual offices 
of kindness and good-fellowship ; a little bullet- 
headed Ducfhman offering a share of his cherished 
Schiedam Schnapps to the sick wife of a Hungarian 
refugee ; a Kentuckian and a Londoner ending a 
wrangle of an hour and a half about the merits of 
their respective countries in a couple »of friendly 
brandy punches ; a freethinking London bookseller 
and your humble servant, after spending the whole 
afternoon in the main-top-mast cross-trees in dis- 
cussing, metaphysically, theologically, and scriptu- 
rally, the Noachian deluge, afterwards discussing a 
bottle of porter together, (thoroughly exhausting both 
subjects). Though the Maine law be an admirable 
institution on land, yet if anybody argues in favor of 
it here, we silence him directly by presenting to his 
mouth and nose a glass of the diluted emetic which 
goes under the name of water on board ship. One 
dose is sufficient. The patient recovers immediately 
from his delusion, and pronounces the Maine law 
eminently a terrestrial animal. If our tea and cof- 



EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 

fee were decent, the case would be different ; but as 
it is, we are absolutely driven to porter, and some of 
the Englishmen, I am afraid, even to stronger pota- 
tions. 



6 MR. DUNN BROWNE'S 



CHAPTER II. 

COMES TO SOUNDINGS. 

Friday, Sept. 14, 1855. — For the last few days, 
with a strong S. S. W. wind, we have been rushing 
through the waves at a tremendous rate, frequently 
twelve or fourteen knots an hour, getting up such a 
momentum indeed that we begin to fear we shall not 
be able to put on the brakes and stop in time to keep 
from running down the small island of Great Britain, 
(an accident which would exert an important influ- 
ence upon the course of Mr. Browne's future travels, 
and also upon the issue of the war). 

Saturday, Sept. loth. — Great Britain may con- 
sider herself safe for the present. We have n't mo- 
. mentum enough to-day to run down a fishing smack. 
In fact it is a dead calm, and very provoking too, so 
near land. Obtained soundings to-day for the first 
time in about eighty fathoms water. So there is an 
Eastern continent here at last, if we only go down 
deep enough for it. My first impressions of Europe 



EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 7 

are, I must confess, rather vague and indefinite. Its 
splendors don't strike me yet very forcibly. If the 
rest of it is like that portion which I have already 
seen (what was brought up on a deep sea lead), I 
think the soil must be poor. 

Wednesday r , Sept. 19th. — I have been sick; sick 
at sea ; and, worse than all, sick in a calm at sea, 
with the ship pitching and tossing at random, instead 
of regularly. Woke the other night from my first 
sleep with quite a number of unpleasant sensations 
that I was already familiar with, besides several new 
acquaintances. A redhot needle in each eye ; sharp 
knives thrust through the temples ; a boa constrictor 
squeezing my chest and shoulders ; the hugest kind 
of an elephant trampling on the small of my back ; 
legs broken on the wheel and stretched on the rack 
and burned in the fire all at once ; this can only give 
a faint idea of the disagreeables of that night. I felt 
enormously large and heavy ; my head a perfect 
mountain ; my limbs big trunks of trees ; my body 
as large as the Colossus at Rhodes, and all made of 
lead. I had ever so many things to do which could n't 
possibly be done ; impossible numbers to count, im- 
possible burdens to lift, impossible mountains to 
climb and seas to cross. Every thing that can't be 
done I felt obliged to do at once. I had to square 



4 



8 MR. DUNN BEOWNE'S 

the circle, to discover perpetual motion and the phi- 
losopher's stone, and the philosophy of the spiritual 
rappings ; to inscribe a four-sided equilateral triangle 
in a circle whose diameter should be five times its cir- 
cumference, and several other geometrical problems of 
equal ease. Remained in this delightful state of body 
and mind through the night and part of the next 
day, but am now "complaining" of being a little 
better, though I can't possibly get well or calm again 
till this calm in the wind ceases. 

Thursday, Sept. 20th. — With what joy did we rush 
on deck last evening to catch the first faint fannings 
of a southerly breeze as they began to fill the great 
sails of our ship and bring her round to the proper 
course (she had been perversely heading south-west 
for several hours after completely boxing the compass 
during the day), and started us on our way with con- 
stantly accelerated velocity; and all, too, as gently 
as 't were the breath of an infant. Truly a ship is a 
great thing, but it is moved by a little wind and 
guided by a small helm, turned by the strength of a 
single man. 

Friday, Sept. 21st. — I am much better, but the 
breeze, poor thing, is dead, and a whole brood of 
hopes buried with it. A government steamer (for 



EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 9 

the Mediterranean probably) has just crossed, our 
bows, gliding along quietly eleven or twelve knots 
per hour I consider it a decided insult to us that she 
should pass thus near just to aggravate our feelings. 
But now to avenge us on her, the wind is springing 
up again. Unfortunately it is dead against us, but a 
head wind is better far than none, for a ship is a 
contrary sort of a female, (quite unlike the rest of 
the sex,) and will go right in the teeth of an oppos- 
ing force, but let her alone and she won't go at all. 
The old Quickstep will coquette along up the chan- 
nel, now steering for the Parlez-Vous, and now back 
again to the embrace of John Bull, till it is a wonder 
if she does n't miss both parties and get off to Norway. 
Monday, Sept. 2ilh. — A pilot came on board yes- 
terdav afternoon, and cheered us with the informa- 
tion that in a week or ten clays we should probably 
arrive in London, beating up under the present wind. 
Weary with the nine days we had been already 
tossed about without any perceptible progress, four of 
us chartered his boat and came to land last evening 
at Torquay, a town of some 15,000 inhabitants, about 
40 miles to the eastward of Plymouth. The situa- 
tion of the town on the bold headlands of Torbay 
is delightful in the extreme, and all that wealth and 



10 mk. dunn Browne's 



art can do to improve nature has been added. Either 
my eye never beheld such a scene of cultivated 
beauty, or thirty days at sea warps one's judgment 
somewhat in reference to the dear old solid land. 

Yours, once more safe on " terra firma." 



EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 11 



CHAPTER III. 

TERRESTRIAL SEA-SICKNESS. 

An English inn of the good, old-fashioned sort, is 
just the most comfortable place in the world next to 
your own home. Small, quiet, clean, with good beds, 
the most admirable cookery and best of servants, 
giving you just what you ask for and at. any hour of 
day or night; a man who would grumble under such 
circumstances ought to attend his own funeral as 
soon as possible, and leave this beautiful world to 
more reasonable people. -Early Monday morning, 
after enjoying a nice " mutton-chop," (I never under- 
stood the full meaning of that tender, juicy, delicious 
word till our bright, tidy, black-eyed, and rosy-cheeked 
Susan, with her coquettish muslin cap and her merry 
laugh, having spread the table for four in our own 
little parlor, brought them in all smoking hot, with 
the proper accompaniments,) I sallied out for a stroll, 
taking an umbrella, for though the morning was 
bright and fair, yet I knew by the accounts of travel- 



12 MR. DUNN BROWNE'S 

lers that it always rains in England before night, 
and was determined to show the weather that I 
wasn't to be taken in by appearances. 

Every thing about an English town is strange to a 
Yankee ; the buildings all of solid stone, and gable 
end to the street ; the tiled and thatched roofs ; the 
immense walls about the gentlemen's residences (so 
that you might call an Englishman's house not only 
" his castle, " but almost his prison) ; the narrow and 
crooked streets ; and above all the infinite variety of 
vehicles you see therein, of the most fantastic shapes, 
and generally four times as strong and heavy as they 
need be. Then there are the multitudes of donkeys, 
in carts and in carriages, with huge panniers and 
packsaddles, driven by little ragged urchins, ridden 
by big men and women, and unmercifully beaten 
with sticks. 

But I was too much intoxicated with the freedom 
of the land after being shut up so long in a ship to 
confine myself to the streets or roads even, but 
quickly branched off into the fields, wandering over 
hill and dale without any regard to direction or dis- 
tance, unmindful of hedges, walls, gates, and boards 
full of warnings to trespassers ; picked the cunning 
little flowers under my feet, patted all the donkeys 
(four-legged ones) I met ; one of whom ungratefully 



EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 13 

kicked me in return (I patted him considerably harder 
next time) ; chased the sheep (who were so fat and 
tame they wouldn't make much sport) ; plunged by 
and by into a village school among a hundred of the 
noisiest little rogues I ever saw ; scrambled a hun- 
dred yards down some steep cliffs and took a sea 
bath; took a bath of another sort before I got up 
again; straying a while longer, found a little one- 
story village, and went into a funny, black, smoky 
ale-house, made of stones, brick, and mud, with 
thatched roof sixty years old they told me, (the house 
may have been, for ought I know, six hundred) ; 
purchased of a smiling woman, as little, old, and 
queer as the house itself, four-pen'orth of bread and 
cheese and a mug of ale ; found that I was five miles 
from Torquay, that one of my feet was blistered, and 
that, after all, an ocean voyage is n't the best prepara- 
tive for a long walk in the country, %o far as legs are 
concerned. 

To shorten the distance back, I left the road, went 
over a steep hill and some twenty hedges, took a 
wrong turn and went two miles past the town. Ac- 
cordingly proceeded to negotiate with the driver of a 
fish cart, whom I happened to find going the same 
way, to carry me back, he stipulating that I should 
stand a pot of half-and-half, and binding himself to 



14 mr. dunn Browne's 

set me down at the toll-gate about half a mile from 
my inn, which treaty was carried out to our mu- 
tual satisfaction. Hobbled home, lame, hungry, and 
sleepy, about 7 P. M., from my first walk in the 
mother country. 

My Cockney companions being bound for London 
by the night express, I bade them adieu at an early 
hour and left them in company with sundry flagons 
of beer, industriously preparing for their departure*, 
but was somewhat surprised to find one of them 
next morning left behind, having been detained by a 
sudden attack of sea-sickness, accompanied by vom- 
iting and other disagreeable symptoms. He recov- 
ered sufficiently, however, with a light breakfast and 
a cup of coffee, to take the rail with me for the 
North, on through beautiful Exmouth and cathedral- 
crowned Exeter, till at last I stopped at Bristol and 
left him with the farewell prescription of total absti- 
nence from ale, as most likely to prevent the recur- 
rence of that sea-malady which had troubled him the 
previous night. 

This Bristol is a low, dirty, smoky, old, dilapidated 
town which would n't pay for visiting except as a 
contrast to some other fine ones in its vicinity. 
After visiting two or three fine old churches, I walked 
out to Clifton, two miles, to St. Vincent's Rocks, 



EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 15 

where is a scene which amply atones even for Bristol ; 
a gorge about 300 feet deep with a river running be- 
tween its banks, on which gay, sharp little steamers 
some seventy feet long and about three feet wide were 
plying, and then the most romantic and enchanting 
scenery in the distance. All the hills, trees, houses, 
fields, and hedges for miles around are arranged with 
an especial reference to the view from Clifton 
Heights ; even the flocks of sheep, I noticed, had 
men and dogs employed to keep them in picturesque 
attitudes. Tried to throw a stone across the river 
below. The first one fell short amongst a parcel of 
children playing on the bank ; the next just missed 
one of the little steamers above mentioned, which 
was crowded with people ; and the thought, about 
that time occurring to me that this was a rather dan- 
gerous amusement, I desisted, and proceeded to in- 
vest a couple of shillings in the purchase of some 
specimens of the rock, which is in part composed of 
petrified animals and vegetables, and becomes very 
brilliant when properly polished. 



16 mr. dunn browne's 



CHAPTER IV. 

THE CITY OP PRINCE BLADUD. 

The air at Bristol being composed of every thing 
but oxygen and nitrogen, at least every thing that is 
black and smoky and noxious, I decided not to risk 
myself through the night in such a location, and 
came on twelve miles towards London to the famous 
city of Bath, " the Queen of the West." Now it is 
no great matter to arrive in a strange place at eleven 
o'clock at night ; but when that place happens to be 
full of soldiers, and all the hotels crowded to over- 
flowing, (an English inn will accommodate from four 
to six individuals in an emergency,) why the case 
is different, and the symptoms are aggravated by 
every new negative to your request for a bed. After 
being repulsed from the " Blue Boar " and the 
" Golden Lion " and the " Green Dragon," as well as 
several other impossible animals, after attacking sev- 
eral "Castles" in vain, being cut loose from the " An- 
chor," discharged from the " Queen's Arms," and 



EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 17 

hissed away from the " Goose and Gridiron ; " I fol- 
lowed the ragged boy whom I had engaged as 
guide up a dark lane about three feet wide, of 
various heights and longer even than " that lane 
which has no turning," for this had six or seven at 
least, to the " Rose and Crown," which had already 
its complement of half a dozen lodgers, but by per- 
suading two acquaintances to sleep together, I found 
here rest at last for my weary feet. 

In the morning, during the two hours that inter- 
vened between breakfast and the departure of our 
train for London, I made a minute and detailed ex- 
amination of this city of 70,000 inhabitants ; visited 
the Pump Rooms, going several streets out of the 
way in order not to see a review of those soldiers who 
had troubled me so much the previous night : ana- 
lyzed the waters of Prince Bladud's Fount (by drink- 
ing a couple of glasses) : detected therein very plainly 
Sam Weller's " Killibbyate " taste, and two or three 
other distinct villanous flavors : so that, being also 
lukewarm, it is exactly one of those delightful com- 
pounds which the doctors delight to force down peo- 
ple's throats in gallons for the benefit of their health : 
visited the Old Abbey Church, one of the most beau- 
tiful, both externally and internally, in the kingdom ; 

the Crescents, Parks, Circus, etc. : climbed up from 

2 



18 mr. dunn browne's 

the bowl to the rim of the great basin in which the 
city is situated, and should have spilled myself over 
into the adjacent lovely country, but my time was up, 
my train was waiting and engine puffing in haste to 
take me away to London. 

Railway travelling is in several respects different 
in England from the same thing in America. You 
are not annoyed by the dust and cinders which are 
the inseparable abomination of our cars ; you enter 
the car at the side instead of at the end ; nobody can 
get in without a ticket ; you are locked in ; and the 
conductor whistles instead of the engine. The pas- 
senger cars are much smaller and less splendid than 
the American; have larger wheels and no brakes at- 
tached. No road or street crosses the track, all are 
either above or below. In general, all the business 
of the road is managed in a much more clumsy and 
more safe way than with us, and by six times more 
men, who know each his own duty and nothing else. 
For instance, I asked eleven, railway employe's (at 
least they had on the railway uniform, though they 
didn't seem to be very busily employed) and two of 
them engineers, before I could find out the width of 
the gauge of the Great Western road on which we 
were riding, and the last man could only answer, 
after measuring, that it was seven feet. Would any 



EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 19 

Yankee be lounging about the track months, or years 
perhaps, and not find out how far apart the rails were ? 
I trow not. 

Shortly after leaving Bath, we plunged into the 
bowels of the earth, and remained in total darkness 
so long that our emerging at the Antipodes really be- 
gan to seem a thing quite to be expected. Feeling 
after my next neighbor and instituting inquiries, I 
found we were in the " Box " tunnel, which is only 
three miles long, though it seems ten at least. Our 
engine did open its mouth here for the first and last 
time, and uttered one shriek of triumph as we came 
forth into daylight again. But after all, the noise of 
an English engine is a mere baby's squeak compared 
with the hideous, terrific, unearthly roar of a Yankee 
locomotive. "We passed over and under and through 
several fine towns and a great deal of lovely and fer- 
tile country during the day, and about five o'clock 
began to smell and taste London, which we also saw 
and heard half an hour later, and which place is the 
present abiding place of your humble pilgrim andi 
servant. 



20 mr. dunn browne's 



CHAPTER V. 

IN " TOWN." 

If London could be cut up into a dozen parts and 
taken in twelve separate, distinct doses, the effect 
might perhaps be pleasant and healthful ; but as it is, 
all together, swallowed whole, it nearly kills one. 
Yes, I am compelled to say, London is entirely too 
big. And yet the infatuated inhabitants, far from 
acknowledging and seeking to remedy this defect, go 
on adding house to house, and street to street, till 
one begins to feel that it is by a wise dispensation 
of Providence, England is an island, that so a limit 
must come some time to the growth of this monster. 
The streets have used up all the names and several 
times over, so that in many instances a dozen differ- 
ent streets are called by the same appellation, and a 
surname has to be taken up behind, as, " Broad st, 
Bloomsbury," that is, that particular Broad street, 
which intersects Bloomsbury street. 



EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 21 

Taking a stroll the morning after my arrival, I 
came upon a little, muddy, narrow, insignificant 
stream, with a few boats moving about on it and a 
great many more lying high and dry on either side. 
" Does this little creek run * into the Thames ? " 
inquired I of a very prim looking gentleman standing 
near. " Run into the Thames ! " repeated he, darting 
from beneath his spectacles a look of mingled aston- 
ishment, grief, and indignation, (which would cer- 
tainly have withered me if the spectacles had 'nt for- 
tunately been present to break somewhat the shock,) 
" That, my dear sir, is the noble river Thames." Of 
course I did not prolong the conversation under the 
circumstances, but couldn't help thinking the river as 
much too small as the city too large. Taking how- 
ever another view in the afternoon when the tide had 
risen upwards of twenty feet, I felt that I had done 
Father Thames an injustice, to atone for which, I 
have ever since admired his docks, bridges, and ships, 
every thing that is his, to the utmost extent. 

There is nothing brilliant about London, but 
every thing is made for service. The houses are rough, 
black, and grim, with walls two or three feet thick ; 
the carts and carriages heavy, huge, and not to be 
broken by any number of concussions ; and the 
horses that drew them, especially the dray and 



22 mr. dunn browne's 

brewer's horses, perfect elephants in size and strength. 
Every thing is done slowly and methodically in 
London. It is as difficult to hurry an Englishman 
as it is to check a Yankee. The one can't be 
dragged out of a regular routine of duty, the other 
can't be driven into it. The English guide, how- 
ever, who conducts you over the public buildings, 
must be most emphatically excepted from the above 
remark. He is any thing but slow, and annihilates 
time and space in a way to make railways and 
electric telegraphs hide their diminished heads. 
With him a thousand years are but as a quarter of 
an hour, and a whole empire full of poets, states- 
men, and heroes, only a five minutes' walk. Having 
pocketed the shillings, or the sixpences, as the case 
may be, the object is to get rid of us in the shortest 
possible time, to be ready for the next pocket full of 
small change. An usher of the black robe conducted 
a dozen of us sixpences through that large and 
ancient portion of Westminster Abbey, which is not 
open to the public, in fifteen minutes ; and an old 
fat fellow in flame color (how he came to be fat I 
can't imagine) circulated some twenty of us shil- 
lings through the Tower, with its ten thousand ob- 
jects of interest, in less than half an hour, including 
« the visit to the jewel room where a glib-tongued 



EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 23 

matron rattled off to us in a sing-song tone, with- 
out once stopping to take breath, what I presume 
to have been (for I could n't distinguish the words) 
a description of the various crowns, sceptres, swords, 
rings, bracelets, and other baubles which we saw 
glittering in a glass case before us. After she had 
finished her rigmarole and the old fellow in spangled 
scarlet had dragged off the party, wishing to obtain 
one item of definite information if possible, I asked 
the woman which was the great Koh-i-noor diamond, 
but she could not inform me, though upon reflection 
she pointed out the Koh-i-noor bracelet, where sure 
enough I saw the monster gem sparkling in the 
midst of a cluster of inferior stones like a sun among 
stars. They learn every thing by rote and are puz- 
zled by the simplest question, if it require an answer 
not precisely contained in their catechism. 
- St. Paul's cathedral again, is sold in small parcels 
to suit purchasers, a sixpence to go down here, one 
and sixpence to go up there, etc., so that it costs 
you something over a dollar to see the whole, and 
the hurrying process practised here is still more 
shameless than in the other places. In fact we 
spent about three minutes in the crypts beneath the 
church, and I was threatened with a locking down 
for lingering a moment beside Nelson's tomb. I 



24 mr. dunn browne's 

knew however that another party would be along 
soon, and so was not greatly terrified. Now if these 
plump old churchmen must make the house of God 
a source of profit, why can't they pocket the shil- 
lings, and then have a few sentinels on guard about 
the building to see that it sustains no detriment, and 
leave the spectator to roam about at his leisure, and 
indulge in the appropriate emotions without the 
abominable nuisance of an illiterate blockhead of a 
guide ? I pause for a reply. 



EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 25 



CHAPTER VI. 

LEAVES "TOWN." 

The best thing about London, the most healthful, 
the loveliest, finest, and most magnificent, the super- 
lative of all the good adjectives, that only which 
redeems London from the curse of its vastness, is, 
the parks, hills and meadows, groves and forests, 
right in the heart of the city where you can hide 
yourself away from all its sights and sounds as 
completely as if a tliousand miles away ; quiet, 
lovely green islands in the ocean of London, against 
which the waves of toil and business beat in vain. 

The palaces and prisons of the great metropolis 
I have seen, but, receiving no pressing invitation 
to enter either, have had experience only of their 
most comfortable side — the outside. ' The gloom- 
iest, least desirable residence of them all is St. James' 
palace, and Newgate prison the next. The others 
are very much after the common sort. Buckingham 



26 mr. dunn Browne's 

•palace is a large, substantial, plain, comfortable-look- 
ing, three-story house, a very respectable tenement 
for the queen or any one else, only the rent is rather 
high. About Lambeth palace I cannot speak very 
definitely. Walked round it the other morning, 
some two miles, under the shadow of a high, black 
wall, to see if there was any place to enter or get a 
view of it, and there isn't the smallest spot, save 
that at one corner you can get a glimpse of a few 
of the highest towers. How the poor old arch- 
bishop manages to get in and out, unless he uses 
a balloon, is a puzzle to me. 

With regard to the new Parliament Houses, which 
are consuming the people's money at such a ruinous 
rate, I really cannot make up my mind as yet 
whether to admire them greatly or not ; the work 
however will not be suspended to await my decision. 
There is one notable circumstance, though, which 
I can't help mentioning. In all that immense pile 
of building, covering acres of ground, there isn't 
a room capable of containing five hundred people. 
Even the hall of the House of Commons, which 
numbers six hundred and fifty-six members, I think, 
can only seat three hundred persons at most (a tall 
policeman and I counted the benches) ; so you see 
that a seat in Parliament requires something more 



EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 27 

than an election. I do n't wonder now at there being 
so many " contested seats," but should think trouble 
of that sort would occur every night. The intelligent 
policeman, above referred to, however, gave me a 
tolerably satisfactory explanation of the matter, i. e. 
that one half the members of the house were always 
in the refreshment rooms recruiting exhausted na- 
ture, the illiberal public sentiment of England not 
allowing legislators to devour peanuts and ham- 
sandwitches in the house during the sittings, as is 
practised so generally in our own more enlightened 
Congress. 

The only wonderful thing about the world-re- 
nowned Thames Tunnel is that it should cost so 
much money to dig so small a hole. The difficulty 
of its completion is only surpassed by its uselessness, 
now it is done. The penny admission fee, however, 
is well expended, for it presents the cheapest method 
T know of, of descending from the heights of fancy 
to the depths of reality. 

The British Museum and the Crystal Palace at 
Sydenham are, each, a great world into which one 
needs to be born and live a whole life in order to 
describe it, and as my existence was but an infantile 
one of a single day in each, of course a description 
is out of the question. You see every thing that 



28 mr. dunn Browne's 

you expected to see, and every thing that you didn't 
expect to see. Wonders upon wonders rise before 
you till the eye is tired with seeing, and you are 
glad to take one parting look of the huge Bulls of 
Nineveh, to catch one last flash of light reflected 
from the glorious palace of glass, and go home ex- 
hausted from very fulness. One portion of the 
magnificent grounds of the Sydenham Palace is 
profusely adorned with Ichthyosauri and Iguanodons 
and all the other imaginary and impossible monsters 
with which poetical geologists have delighted to 
people our world during those vast periods that 
elapsed before its creation. These animals are 
mostly built of bricks and stucco, rather in the 
grotesque style of architecture, with a decided 
leaning to the Tusk-mi style in ornament. The 
general effect is nightmareish and bugbeary and 
hobgoblinical in the extreme. Young England and 
its nurses pass through these walks with suppressed 
breath and trembling steps. 

The Bank of England is a suspicious, ill-looking 
building, without any windows and shockingly low 
as if it had been driven into the ground a couple of 
stories, but it is very richly gilded within. One of 
the cashiers politely requested my name and resi- 
dence upon a bit of paper I had in my pocket, and 



EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 29 

then very handsomely presented me with five golden 
sovereigns therefor ; with which sum I decided to 
leave London at once, before I fell among any more 
thieves and guides. 

On my journey I called at Brighton with its beauti- 
ful beach, its suspension pier, and its pretty houses 
built of pebbles laid up in cement ; Chichester, with 
its ancient cross and fine old cathedral containing 
many of Flaxman's choicest groups of sculpture ; 
Portsmouth, with its grim fortifications and huge 
war-ships, (among which I visited the " Victory " on 
which Nelson died,) and its enormous dockyard, 
where I was refused admission because I was an 
American, and told them I would willingly wait till 
we came over and captured Portsmouth and could 
examine at our leisure ; wandered a day over the 
lovely Isle of Wight, a perfect paradise of verdure, 
and reluctantly, with many a lingering look at the 
romantic scenery about Osborne house, (one of the 
Queen's summer residences,) passed over to South- 
ampton and embarked for Havre. So good-by 
to glorious old England for the present, and " bon- 
jour " to her sprightly ally. 



30 mr. dunn browne's 



CHAPTER VII. 

"UNDERGROUND RAILROAD" TO PARIS. 

Custom-houses are certainly among the customs 
which ought to be abolished as soon as practicable, 
but if the evil be still a necessary one, it is, surely, 
managed at Havre in a way to produce as little in- 
convenience and vexation as possible. The trav- 
eller's baggage is subjected to a merely nominal ex- 
amination without any of that searching and rum- 
maging which I had been led to expect. The only 
trouble about the matter is the delay of an hour or 
two, or three, consequent thereupon. There being 
nothing of especial interest here save a fine quay, 
perhaps we may as well skip Havre and rush on to 
Rouen as soon as possible, which place we will reach 
as soon as I have finished one remark by way of 
episode in reference to railroads. 

It is astonishing how many tunnels they build in 
France and England. They go out of their way 
any time to find a hill to bore through, in order to 



EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 31 

save land damages, I suppose. The road to Rouen 
is mostly subterranean. We passed through the 
cellars of one or two towns (and the attics of one at 
least by way of compensation), and at last emerged 
from one grand, long, and hideously dark tunnel into 
the very midst of the ancient capital of Normandy. 
Rouen is the strangest, queerest place I was ever 
in ; there is not a thing in it which is not strange 
and queer, for if you should chance to light on any 
thing common-place, that would be the strangest of 
all from its very rarity. No two streets are on the 
same level or run in the same direction, or in any 
particular direction at all ; and no two houses in the 
same street are alike in height, width, or nearness to 
the centre of the street. They are of all sorts of 
materials, and the windows and doors are thrown 
in entirely at random. It is called a Gothic town I 
think, but if you can't find specimens of all the 
orders or at least disorders of architecture in every 
street, then I have studied Eschenburg's manual in 
vain. I made no inquiries for a map of the town, 
for I knew of course that such a thing would be im- 
possible to construct, but strolled about all the morn- 
ing, asking no questions for the reason that the 
people in France don't talk good French, and it is 
a wonder to me now how I ever escaped from the 



32 ME. DUNN BEOWNE'S 

labyrinth or found any of the public buildings, but 
fortune favored me in both respects more than I had 
any right to expect. 

The cathedral is a most noble and venerable edi- 
fice, shockingly disfigured by stacks of miserable little 
houses and shops leaning up against its walls ; its 
facade covered with delicate tracery in stone ; its 
three towers of beautiful proportions and lofty, one 
(of iron) three hundred and eighty feet high, if I un- 
derstood the French numerals correctly. The huge 
church of St. Ouen rivals the cathedral itself in all 
except antiquity. Here, finding a little door in one 
of the pillars I availed myself of the opening, crawled 
up a circular stone staircase some one hundred and 
fifty feet in the dark, and strolled over the towers 
and battlements a half hour, having the good for- 
tune not to find myself locked up when I came 
down. And six or seven more ancient and costly 
churches I visited in that morning walk, each of 
which would make the fortune of any other town in 
the way of the picturesque, but which seemed noth- 
ing wonderful here ; also the ancient Palace of Jus- 
tice and Parliament House; the statue of Joan of 
Arc in the market-place ; a curious old archway and 
tower containing a huge clock ; a very old church 
changed into a blacksmith's shop, and other curious 
sights at every step. 



EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 33 

A few more tunnels, and a great deal of lovely 
scenery along the valley of the Seine, (a punster 
would say that was only what we might expect,) 
bring us to Paris where I have just arrived, weary, 
sleepy, and deperately hungry. 



34 MR. dunn Browne's 



CHAPTER VIII. 

FRENCH TALKING AND TALKING FRENCH. 

Most people have a particular set of organs to be 
used in talking, called vocal organs ; but a French- 
man's organs are all vocal. He talks with every 
member and muscle of his body and every article of 
dress he wears. I don't think a parcel of Parisians 
in straight waistcoats could understand each other. 
A shrug of his shoulders is a whole sentence. A 
wave of the hand dispenses flowers of rhetoric. He 
emphasizes with his elbows and punctuates with his 
fingers. A flourish of his coat tail is a figure of 
speech. He shakes metaphors from the folds of his 
pocket handkerchief, and at a' pinch, even his snuff- 
box serves to round a period. You ought to have 
seen the eloquence of one old lady's petticoat, the 
other day, as she was enlarging upon the advantages 
of an apartment, for the rent of which your humble 
servant was negotiating. The grace with which she 
flourished that article of wearing apparel about the 



EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 35 

room, the striking attitudes it assisted her in assum- 
ing, the great variety of meanings it conveyed, cer- 
tainly gave me new ideas with reference to the 
capabilities of dress as a medium of thought. Of 
course, in this case, the petticoat was the outside 
garment. If its voice had been stifled under the 
folds of a long, awkward dress, in all human proba- 
bility the result would have been totally different, for 
my own unassisted judgment would have prompted 
me, I confess, to have chosen some other apartment. 
The earnestness, energy, and passion which the 
French throw into even the most ordinary conversa- 
tion is wonderful. I have been several times on the 
point of interfering to prevent a quarrel, or quicken- 
ing my steps to get out of its reach (according as my 
benevolence or self-love for the moment preponder- 
ated), when my fears have been removed by seeing 
the supposed combatants wave each other a smiling 
adieu, and separate in peace. I have been hitherto 
so much engaged in seeing people talk, observing the 
queer expressions and movements of the face and the 
grotesque contortions of the body, that I have had lit- 
tle leisure for hearing, or for displaying my own pro- 
ficiency by talking. Whatever remarks I have had 
occasion to make, however, have been readily under- 
stood, while of the gibberish addressed to me in re- 



36 mr. dunn Browne's 

turn, I could hardly make out two words in a sen- 
tence ; which shows very plainly who speaks the best 
French. Indeed, it must be acknowledged by the 
greatest admirer of Paris, that very few indeed of her 
inhabitants speak French with that purity and cor- 
rectness of pronunciation which are imparted in most 
of our American schools and colleges. I find, how- 
ever, that they are improving every day, as I can un- 
derstand them much better now than a week since, 
when I first arrived. 

Every thing is done here in the dramatic style, as 
might be expected in a city where thirty thousand 
people attend the theatres every night. Two market 
women, parting for the night, bid each other adieu 
with all the pathos of captive princesses ordered to 
immediate execution. The driver of an omnibus 
cracks his whip and shouts to his horses with the ar- 
dor of a warrior charging the enemy. The vender of 
cabbages and carrots arranges his vegetables with an 
eye to the scenic effect. The blind and lame beggars 
asking alms at the doors of the churches, form them- 
selves into picturesque " tableaux." All are acting a 
part. Everybody down to the very children at their 
play, and every thing, even to the soups of your din- 
ner and the tie of your cravat, is u a la" somebody or 
something else. And not only a theatrical but also a 



EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 37 

military air pervades the whole community, not con- 
fined either to the inhabitants, but extending over the 
face of nature. The trees in the parks are all drilled 
and disciplined into regular battalions, cropped, 
pruned, and trimmed into perfect soldierly uniformity, 
not a single rebellious branch left to grow in its own 
wild luxuriance, not a leaf daring to rustle out of its 
rank and file. So also the flowers and plants in the 
public gardens are drawn up with the same military 
precision, marshalled in battle array over against each 
other, poor inoffensive little things, with no weapons 
to discharge, save perfumes. Monsieur l'Empereur, 
is n't this pushing military tactics a little too far ? 



38 mr. dunn browne's 



CHAPTER IX. 

PARIS BY GASLIGHT AND BY DAYLIGHT. 

Paris has two sides, like a Brussels carpet, a right 
side and a w ong side, which latter must be kept out 
of sight, if one wishes only to admire. Two thirds 
of the city is made up of narrow, dirty, crooked, 
ugly streets, inhabited by poor, half-starved, ill-clad, 
wooden-shod operatives ; the other third is the abode 
of princely luxury and splendor. In one of the great 
Cafes on the fashionable Boulevards, a hundred francs 
is very often paid for a dinner, and one can scarcely 
get wherewithal to satisfy his appetite for less than 
thirty francs ; while in a little eating-house not fifty 
paces distant, the laborer gets a meal for ten eous. 
Although the palaces, monuments, fountains, church- 
es, and public edifices are numerous and costly 
almost beyond belief, and many parts of the city real- 
ize all one's anticipatory dreams of the glory and mag- 
nificence of the gay capital, yet on the whole, there 



EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 39 

is a little disappointment at finding this paradise of 
the world built of very common looking stones, 
bricks, and mortar, like other cities, the streets not 
very sweet smelling, and the men therein all disfig- 
ured about the mouth, by hair of every possible 
shade of the dirty colors. 

Every thing here is too artificial. There is not one 
bit of pure, unadulterated nature left within the city 
limits. There are trees enough, but they are all 
shaven and shorn as I have before told you ; hills 
enough, but they are hills that man has piled up ; 
lakes, streams, and fountains enough, but they are 
only a series of ingenious hydraulic experiments by 
skilful engineers. A Frenchman cannot let Nature 
alone. Nothing that God has made is quite perfect 
till it has also passed under his own finishing hand. 
Luckily he cannot reach the clouds, or he would 
doubtless set himself to cut and shave them down 
into more regular shape, and out of the parings carve 
a parcel of Grecian statues to set up on the arch of 
the rainbow. 

But however Paris may appear by day, by night 
the scene is magnificent beyond description. Fairy 
tales, the Arabian Night's Entertain ments, all that 
you have seen, read, or dreamed of that is glorious 
and brilliant, glimmers, fades, goes entirely out in the 



40 mr. dunn browne's 

comparison. The streets all in a blaze of gas-light 
and crowded with bustling vehicles and gay prome- 
naders ; the hundreds of theatres and other places of 
public amusement, brilliantly illuminated and send- 
ing forth peals of joyous music and laughter; the 
thousand and one long arcades, covered with glass 
and lined with a continual succession of shops full of 
all manner of tempting wares; the gorgeously fur- 
nished cafes and saloons filled with merry guests of 
both sexes, eating and drinking together ; the hum of 
the ten thousand voices, the glare of the myriad 
lights, the ever-changing panorama of brightness, 
that is passing before you, charms, dazzles, confuses, 
intoxicates, fairly stuns you into a state of staring 
wonder and amazement. You know that there is 
very little substance to all this show, but you none 
the less admire. You have seen the other end of the 
kaleidoscope, how it is only little bits of painted glass 
that are the basis of these enchanting visions, still 
they are none the less lovely for that. But in the 
morning, when the gas is turned off, and the fog*is 
turned on, when the elegant carriages have given 
place to the lumbering drays, when the blouses and 
wooden shoes have the pavement all to themselves, 
and the dull shutters conceal from your view the 
treasures of the shops, then comes the disenchant- 



EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 41 

ment. Bright poetry, stripped of her feathers, turns 
out to be only plain prose after all. You see noth- 
ing of your last night's banquet but the broken bot- 
tles strewed about the floor, the chairs upside down, 
and the tables covered with bones and crumbs. You 
find that nothing is more stupid than a theatre by 
daylight ; you are disgusted in fact, and turning into 
the first restaurant that appears, call for a cup of 
strong coffee and some eggs, for yourself and your 
humble servant, Dunn Browne. 



42 mr. dunn browne's 



CHAPTER X. 



KNICK-KNACKS. 



Paris is one vast, grand, magnificent toy-shop, for 
children of all ages, where every thing which can't 
possibly be of the slightest use to you, and which 
you will be sure to break in carrying away, is ex- 
posed for sale in endless variety and profusion. Ten 
thousand little images, busts, and statuettes of mar- 
ble, plaster, sugar, chocolate, bronze, gingerbread, 
soap, and porcelain, illustrating all the Heathen My- 
thologies and Pagan Divinities ever invented, the 
natural history of all animals and unnatural history 
of all nations : jewelry enough to supply all the in- 
habitants of the globe to the last naked Hottentot, 
with each a gold watch, half a dozen rings for the 
fingers, ears, or nose as fashion shall dictate, a brace- 
let or two, and a gold tooth-pick : a million walk- 
ing-sticks with ivory heads carved into such fantastic 
shapes and covered with such delicate tracery that 
the purchaser dares not lay hand upon one, but car- 



EXPEKIENCES EN" EOKEIGN PAKTS. 43 

ries it daintily under his arm : an infinite assort- 
ment of portmonnaies decreasing in size as they 
increase in price, on the very reasonable principle 
that the more you pay for one, the less money you 
will have left to put into it : dolls with staring eyes 
and painted cheeks, from the size of a full-grown 
woman away down till the waist becomes invisible 
to the naked eye : fans enough to blow a fleet of the 
line across the Atlantic : ten thousand flimsy articles 
of dress of which I no more know the names than I 
do what part of the body they are intended to cover 
or reveal: a world of perfumery of more strange 
scents than the sharpest nose ever dreamed of: in- 
numerable and indescribable knick-knacks to eat, 
twisted into an infinite variety of forms without any 
substance, delightful to the taste but melting into 
utter nonentity long before they reach the stomach : 
every thing in short, from a Jews-harp up to a ten 
thousand dollars Sevres vase, and all arranged with 
such taste, so temptingly displayed, that you are 
certain to buy something, and equally certain to be 
sorry for it after. Your whistle is so beautifully 
gilded, and is delivered to you with such fascinating 
grace, that you never think till too late, how dearly 
you are paying for it. 

The French are just the nicest, pleasantest, most 



44 MR. DUNN BROWNE'S 

accommodating, and most graceful shopkeepers in 
the world. They are perfect with but one little ex- 
ception to show that they are mortal after all, and 
that is in the matter of honesty. Their prices are 
entirely extempore, and vary according to the weather 
and their opinion of your ignorance of the article in 
question. It is amusing to go into a shop and get 
the price of the same article on different days. I de- 
termined not to purchase a hat till I found a man 
who would tell me the same sum twice in succes- 
sion, and was a fortnight in the operation, and pre- 
sume that it was only by accident that I succeeded 
at last. Perhaps, however, there is no intentional 
dishonesty in the thing. Nearly all the articles on 
sale are such as have no intrinsic value, and it is 
only natural, therefore, that their price should be a 
thermometer of the ever-varying fancy of the seller. 

Speak of buying and selling, and of honesty, nat- 
urally leads us to the Exchange, or Bourse, the great 
centre of financial operations, where two or three 
thousand merchants meet daily, a place which, more 
than any other, has produced an impression on my 
organs of hearing, if not on my mind. Any one who 
has visited the New York Exchange, vividly recol- 
Jlects the effect of the reverberations of sound under 
the dome. But even with that for a basis, no stretch 



EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 45 

of the imagination can enable one to form an ade- 
quate idea of the " noise and confusion " of the Paris 
Bourse. I just begin to see for the first time why- 
brokers are called bears and bulls. If there had been 
2,000 literal bears and bulls shut up under that dome, 
all bellowing and roaring with might and main, and 
each with a speaking trumpet to increase the sound,, 
they might have roared themselves hoarse before 
they could rival their human prototypes. They shut 
up about a hundred of the noisiest between the two- 
concentric circular railings towards one end of the vast 
hall, and it is highly interesting to stand in the gal- 
lery and look down upon their frantic gesticulations.. 
" Operations at the Bourse" were truly "lively" the 
day I visited it. That Niagara of sound has beeni 
ringing in my ears ever since ; though Niagara is a 
very feeble and inadequate comparison for it, believe* 
me. 



46 mr. dunn Browne's 



CHAPTER XI. 

THE CHURCHES OF PARIS. 

The churches are the most impressive of all the 
'buildings in this city of palaces and splendid edifices. 
Their great antiquity and interesting historical asso- 
ciations ; the solemnity of this grand old Gothic ar- 
chitecture, more in unison with a place of worship 
*than with a building for secular purposes ; their lofty 
"arches, curiously carved ornaments, stained windows, 
and the fine paintings and statues which adorn them, 
combine to give them an interest which nothing else 
possesses in the same degree. And yet while the 
general effect is impressive and edifying in the high- 
est degree, when one comes to examine more mi- 
nutely, he is constantly stumbling upon such quaint 
and funny carved work, or such ridiculous and shock- 
ing taste in painting, or in selecting subjects to paint, 
that ten to one he doesn't go out of the church in any 
better frame of mind than he has on entering. Side 
by side with the most delightful pictures illustrating 



EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 47 

the Gospel history, you will find a herd of seven- 
headed and ten-horned beasts from the Apocalypse, 
and some of the most incredibly silly passages from 
the lives of the Romish saints that the wildest imag- 
ination can conceive. And then just on the line be- 
tween the ridiculous and sacrilegious, come their 
altar pieces with all sorts of representations of the 
Deity, the Virgin Mary usually occupying a promi- 
nent position on the left hand of the Father, while 
the Son is on His right. Over the door of the 
Church of St. Vincent de Paul, appears in bas-relief 
" The Holy Trinity," the Father, a stern-looking 
man, something like the Jupiter of Grecian mythol- 
ogy, with black hair and beard, the Son, a milder 
personage, with light hair and blue eyes, at his side, 
and the Holy Ghost in the form of a dove, perched 
on a cloud over their heads. 

Apropos of pictures and graven images, I was 
interested in the groups which appear on the huge 
bronze doors of the Madeleine ; illustrations from 
Scripture history of the consequences of breaking 
the several commandments ; not only from their 
marvellous beauty, but from the fact that the second 
commandment does not appear at all, and the num- 
ber is made up by splitting the tenth ; " Thou shalt 
not covet the wife of thy neighbor," forming the 
ninth, illustrated by a most magnificent representa- 



48 mr. Dunn Browne's 

tion of the scene between Nathan and David. I 
had heard this accusation brought against the Ro- 
man Catholics before, but never saw any proof of it 
until now, as the Douay Bible, I think, has the whole 
decalogue correctly. 

There is no situation so fitted to solemnize the 
mind, and fill it with devotional feeling, as standing 
under the nave of one of these grand old churches 
(or still more splendid modern ones, the Pantheon 
and Madeleine,) always provided it be done any 
day of the week but Sunday, when the case is en- 
tirely altered. I have attended high mass one or two 
sabbaths, and such a conglomeration of excellent 
music and muttered Latin, gilt angels, holy water, 
wax candles, and little boys in white with red caps 
on, and kneelings and kissing crucifixes, and ringing 
little bells, and tossing censors in the air, I never 
saw before, certainly under the name of religion. 
However the audience appear extremely devout, pay 
the strictest attention to all the exercises, cross them- 
selves with holy water at the door of the church, and 
then go out to enjoy a fine holiday and visit the 
theatre in the evening, for this is the great gala-day 
when all Paris is to be seen in the streets and at the 
places of amusement, except about half the work- 
men, who continue their labors as on other days. 
The priests are a pleasant, polite, benevolent-look- 



EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 49 

ing class of men, round and rosy-faced, wearing 
rather a graceful costume, especially the hat and 
feather, and, what seems to me a little strange, I 
confess, looking precisely alike, of exactly the same 
height, features, and weight, to a pound, for all the 
world like coins stamped in the same moukJi and 
differing only in the different degrees of wear and 
tear caused by the circulation. I haven't yet made 
a sufficient number of observations to establish the 
general principle, but that is the result of my inves- 
tigation so far. 



50 mr. dunn browne's 



CHAPTER XII. 

MUSEUMS AND ART IN PARIS. 

I AM a lover of the fine arts, and manifested a 
taste in that direction at a very early age, by draw- 
ing portraits of my schoolmates on the slate that 
should have been covered with arithmetical prob- 
lems, as well as by executing several fine statues 
in snow. I admire pictures, and think the face of 
nature reflected on canvas, almost as beautiful as 
the original, and the faces of men and women even 
usually a trifle better looking than their originals. 
But moderation is desirable in all things. The ap- 
petite of the eye is not insatiable any more than that 
of the stomach. For myself, having examined, dur- 
ing the past month, several hundred acres of cele- 
brated paintings and a corresponding amount of 
fine statuary, to say nothing about endless collec- 
tions of miscellaneous odds and ends of broken 
ancient cities and several immense palaces full of 



EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 51 

Gobelin tapestry and interesting historical associa- 
tions, I begin to confess to a feeling of weariness 
coming over my powers of admiration ; and to no 
small joy in the thought that I have only about a 
dozen more museums to visit in Paris. Really, it is 
astonishing, bewildering, discouraging, the amount 
of the fine arts one is here obliged to undergo. It 
affords one sincere pleasure to remember that the 
Allies carried away about half in 1815, and it even 
begins to appear an alleviating circumstance to be 
mentioned in favor of the revolutions, that the mob 
usually amuse themselves by tearing in pieces 
some half a dozen palaces with their precious con- 
tents ; though not much is gained thereby, after all, 
for these same revolutions in turn furnish such a 
world of striking scenes for the next crop of artists 
to illustrate, that the loss is quickly made up, and 
thus the temple of the arts ever rises anew out of 
its ashes, built of its own cinders, by the hands of 
its own destroyers, in the light of its own expiring 
flames. (I have a faint idea that I am indebted for 
the last part of the foregoing sentence to the com- 
position of a remarkably promising sophomore, sub- 
mitted to my friendly critical inspection in days of 
yore.) 

In the first place, there is the Louvre, with its 



52 mr. dunn browne's 

twenty-three separate grand museums, (one of which 
occupies a room more than a quarter of a mile in 
length,) enough in itself to satisfy any reasonable 
city of a million inhabitants, and certainly enough 
to give any reasonable man business for a lifetime 
of study and meditation. Here are gathered mas- 
ter-pieces of all the ages and nations of history ; 
several ancient cities exhumed from the grave of 
oblivion, and transported hither bodily by sea and 
by land ; the sepulchres of the dead, the warlike 
trophies, the sacred utensils of worship, and the com- 
mon household furniture of all the nations, kingdoms, 
and tribes under the sun ; works of art illustrating 
every stage of its development, every epoch of its 
history ; the dusty and mutilated glories of antiquity 
as well as the still untarnished glories of modern 
times ; all brought together into one grand repository, 
the children of a most prolific mother, all entertained 
around one hospitable hearth. 

Next comes the young and mighty " Exposition 
des Beaux Arts," with its six acres of paintings, its 
drawings, engravings, and sculpture, a collection, in 
the opinion of many judges of no mean authority, 
absolutely unrivalled, at the present time, in the 
world. But we have even now only just begun the 
enumeration, for there are yet to mention the gallery 



EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 53 

of the Luxembourg ; the splendid collection of the 
" School of the Fine Arts ; " the score of Palaces in 
and around Paris, all lavishly adorned with the 
works of the most celebrated masters ; Versailles, 
which in many respects surpasses all the collections 
yet spoken of, and whose glories positively cannot 
be described nor imagined ; and aside from mere 
paintings and statuary, the museums at the im- 
perial manufactories of Gobelin tapestry and Sevres 
porcelain, those rare pictures in wool and in mud;, 
then the vast collection of coins and medals at the* 
Mint, and a collection of ancient seals at the Im- 
perial Library, besides numerous other smaller, 
museums at the various public buildings throughout 
the city. All these are open to the public during 
the great exhibition, and from all these comes that 
weariness of which I have spoken, and with whichi 
doubtless you are in a state to sympathize, now 
that you have endured the enumeration. 



54 ME. DUNN BROWNE'S 



CHAPTER XIII. 

HIS FEELINGS ARE TOO MANY FOR HIM. 

As it is one of the very first principles of Art that 
no amount of nakedness is indecency, and clothing 
is on the whole dispensed with, except an occasional 
Toga for some man who is as unYike an old Roman 
as possible, and a sort of a nondescript flowing robe 
which sometimes partly conceals the lower half of 
the female form, leaving the beholder greatly puzzled 
as to the way in which it is fastened up, why one 
gets at last somewhat reconciled to the thing and 
learns to look at naked realities and historical scenes 
stripped of all extrinsic appendages without being 
greatly shocked. But occasionally the paucity of 
apparel seems so glaringly opposed to all the circum- 
stances connected with the incident represented, that 
the sense of fitness will rebel against this rule of art. 
I didn't mind seeing a very lightly clothed Delilah 
caressing a great, silly, naked Sampson to sleep on 



EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 55 

her lap, because the probabilities do not greatly op- 
pose such a view of the case, nor disturb myself very 
greatly at seeing a polite, naked old gentleman of a 
dark brown color (the servant of Abraham) offering 
necklaces and bracelets to a half-naked damsel of a 
few shades lighter complexion, whom I took to be 
Rebecca, for it was a warm day and they were under 
the shade of some trees, and the artists must have 
some license. But when the very next picture that 
met my eye was poor Ruth out in the hot sun, 
gleaning among the rough wheat-sheaves, with 
nothing on but the above-mentioned nondescript gar- 
ment and insanely hugging an armful of bearded 
grain against her tender breast, it really seemed to me 
that as the case is now out of Boaz' reach, somebody 
ought to interfere, and I have accordingly spoken out. 
Mr. Artist, I appeal to you, would it not have been 
better, by a few strokes of your brush, to have ex- 
tended that garment up to her shoulders, or at the 
very least, to have covered the poor creature's head 
with a broad-brimmed palm-leaf hat, as a matter of 
mere humanity, to avoid harrowing people's feelings 
with the sight of so much apparent suffering ? 

And then, again, two thirds of the female figures, 
besides being represented nude, are also in a state of 
repose without a line of expression in their faces or 



56 mr. dunn browne's 

of movement in their bodies, all regular and fault- 
less and beautiful and stupid as images cut in blanc 
mange, and at last you get thoroughly disgusted 
with wandering about among a parcel of character- 
less Venuses, Graces, Nymphs, and Virgins, with 
their everlasting monotony of well-rounded limbs, 
plump bodies, and smooth faces. These are not all 
the materials necessary to the composition of a true 
woman, either in the world of real life, or in the ideal 
world of art, and therefore I pronounce half the stat- 
ues and paintings of females in the Great Exposition 
as veritable shams as the wax concerns which the 
dress-makers put up in their windows to illustrate the 
fashions. 

There are a few women there, though, especially 
the portraits, (I noticed two or three among the Eng- 
lish portraits this very day,) whom I should be hap- 
py to receive into my very selectest circle of acquaint- 
ances. I wonder whether these portraits are real 
likenesses of anybody or not. But their very superi- 
ority over the vapid Goddesses and fancy sketches 
around them, shows that they must be reflections of 
a real beauty which exists somewhere besides in the 
brain of the artist. After all the ecstacies, however, 
into which people pretend to fall over works of art, a 
real live woman and a bona fide tree are as much 



EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 57 

superior to all artificial imitations of them, as the 
stripes of a rainbow to those of a calico bed-quilt, 
and, thank Heaven, we have both, women and trees 
in our country in a perfection not to be attained in 
the Old World, so it is no great matter if our "show" 
of pictures at the Exposition be meagre, which it 
must be confessed it is, decidedly. There is a re- 
spectable picture of Franklin arguing the cause of 
the Colonies before the French king, a rather striking 
one of a wounded soldier leaning on the shoulder of 
his beloved, a spirited Broadway sleighing scene, and 
another whose coloring seemed to me very fine, a 
sharp little negro boy holding an umbrella over the 
head of a beautiful Odalisque, besides several por- 
traits, two little views of Niagara, etc. etc. 



58 MR. DUNN BROWNE'S 



CHAPTER XIV. 

THE EXPOSITION AND THE EMPEROR. 

The Exposition of '55 is henceforth to be spoken 
of among the things that were. It is already shorn 
of most of its glories, and on Thursday next, Novem- 
ber 15th, it is to be finished, extinguished, fairly blown 
out by a grand blast of 1,500 trumpets and other mu- 
sical instruments. On the whole, considering that it 
had not the charm of novelty like its London proto- 
type, and that a state of war is n't exactly favorable 
to such an enterprise (though the Russian trophies 
displayed in great abundance have attracted much 
attention), it has been as successful as could well be 
expected. Many have pronounced the thing a failure, 
indeed, but on what grounds I cannot see, unless, for- 
sooth, it is a failure not to have gathered there every 
single object animate and inanimate in all creation, 
for I can think of nothing now, save Dr. Hitchcock's 
bird tracks, of all that is in the heaven above and the 



EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 59 

earth beneath and the waters under the earth, of 
which a specimen could n't be found in some corner 
of the great palace of industry. I was in momen- 
tary expectation of putting my foot into one of them 
even, but by some strange fatality, not one is to be 
found not only in the Exposition, but not even in the 
vast geological museums of the city, the magnificent 
and costly collections at the Garden of Plants and 
the School of Mines. 

And so the great Exhibition being closed, the 
Emperor will be obliged to provide something else 
to amuse the people with. His office is certainly 
no sinecure, as his very appearance shows. I have n't 
met in all the streets of Paris a more care-worn 
countenance than that of their ruler. He has labor 
to provide for all the workers, and amusement for all 
the idlers. Moreover, bread is getting exceedingly 
high, and the pulse of the Parisian populace always 
rises with the price of food. The symptoms are 
already slightly feverish. A little incident was 
whispered in my ear yesterday, which is not with- 
out meaning, though I cannot vouch for its truth 
any further than to say that it was a very respectable 
person who told it to me. The Emperor was pass- 
ing two or three days since through the midst of 
a large body of laborers engaged upon one of the 



60 mr. dunn browne's 

bridges now in progress, and noticing that they did 
not take off their hats as usual, he paused a moment, 
and the following brief but expressive dialogue took 
place: Emperor — "My friends, you are discon- 
tented." Laborers — (Looking rather sheepish and 
some of them removing their hats,) " Bread is too 
high." Emperor — " My friends, I am occupying my- 
self about you ; " and passed on without another 
word. But it takes a very powerful decree to make 
the price of bread fall when the crops are short, and 
it is difficult to induce butchers to sell meat for 
much less than they are obliged themselves to pay 
for it. However, things are very quiet, and Louis 
Napoleon knows how to manage the French people 
probably as well as any one ; but, as I have just said, 
it is no sinecure. They need to be kept very busy. 
It is wonderful, though, how they love the name of 
Napoleon and reverence his memory. I have never 
heard his name spoken here even by a child without 
a visible feeling of pride and reverence. The splen- 
dor of his tomb under the dome of the " Invalides " 
tells the same story, as well as the crowds who flock 
to visit it on the two public days in the week, when 
the top of the Sarcophagus is removed, and you can 
look down into the receptacle and almost see the 
dust of the Great Departed. The mothers lift up 



EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 61 

their little children to allow them to gaze upon it, as 
I have seen mothers do at funerals to give their 
little ones a last look at the features of a deceased 
friend. The care with which every thing is preserved 
that belonged to the Emperor, the rooms in the 
Louvre and other Palaces full of sacredly preserved 
relics, are all evidences of the same affection. Every 
article of dress that he wore, every table that he wrote 
upon, chair that he sat upon, handkerchief that he 
wiped his face withal, every sword that" he drew in 
battle, every knife and fork that he wielded at the 
table, whatever he touched, has become more pre- 
cious than gold in the eyes of this hero-worshipping 
people. They bare their heads at the mention of 
his name, they recount his exploits with burning en- 
thusiasm, little incidents of his private life they re- 
late with tears in their eyes, they know by heart the 
history of all his battles and the minutest event, of 
his career. They hate the English, I verily believe, 
more from the treatment he received at their hands, 
than from the many centuries of hereditary hostility 
between the two nations. 



\ 



62 MR. DUNN BROWNE'S 



CHAPTER XV. 



WOMEN, BABIES, AND DOGS. 



The women of Paris, generally speaking, are not 
very beautiful. Their naturally dark complexion is 
not improved any by constant exposure, (they wear 
nothing on their heads but a little muslin cap,) and 
then the wear and tear of countenance, resulting 
from their energetic manner of talking, materially 
aids Father Time in ploughing furrows in their cheek. 
But, if not remarkable for beauty, they are very keen 
looking, with their bright black eyes, sharp features 
and quick movements, and make the best possible 
shopkeepers and accountants. Even in the eating- 
houses, where the waiters are men, and in the shops 
where salesmen of the masculine gender are em- 
ployed, there is a nice, neat little woman, with 
smooth, dark hair, and black silk dress, nine times 
out of ten at the desk, to attend to the money mat- 
ters ; and I give you leave „to cheat or catch one in 
an error if you can. 



EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 63 

Passing naturally from the women to the babies, 
these are the funniest, most serious, old looking little 
bits of well-behaved humanity that it is possible to 
conceive of. I counted more than forty, with their 
nurses, the other afternoon, down on the Boulevard, 
at a .sort of a baby-show, which takes place every 
fine day in front of the Cafe de Paris, and there 
wasn't one of the whole score who didn't deserve 
a gold medal for its perfect propriety of demeanor 
and correct general deportment. " Cry ? " They 
would laugh you to scorn if you suggested such a 
thing. You might as well expect to see a cry started 
in an assembly of Indian chiefs, gathered in stately 
conclave about their council fire. Gray hairs might 
have learned a lesson in good behavior from these 
tiny things, that had no hair at all to speak of, at 
least I didn't see any, possibly because they all wore 
little white caps. On the whole it was a very edify- 
ing and entertaining spectacle, especially when the 
refreshments were served. They have four or five 
places called Creches, immense reservoirs of babies, 
which receive in the morning the infantry of the la- 
boring women of the whole district, and distribute 
them again at night, several matrons of experience 
taking charge of the cradle and pap department 
through the day. I don't know whether this is a 



64 MR. DUNN BROWNE'S 

peculiar institution or not, but it strikes me as a good 
one, and especially adapted to a Republic, as it ac- 
customs the young citizens at an early age to public 
assemblages and teaches them to trust to their own 
resources. 

From babies, which are a species of quadruped, it 
is but a step to dogs, and I am constrained to say 
that the French taste as displayed in this direction, 
is truly deplorable. Every dog in the city, so far at 
least as my observation has extended, is of some 
miserable, dirty color or combination of colors, with 
coarse hair, of various lengths, having no shape at 
all, any more than a nightmare, with a most valla- 
nous bark, a tail without any wag to it, and a moral 
character worse even than its physical traits. And 
yet, such is the Frenchman's love for this vile beast, 
that no strictness of police regulations, no amount of 
taxes, nor muzzles, can persuade him to give up his 
dog. Nay, even his love increases with every fresh 
act of persecution, and will doubtless continue till the 
last dog has had his day and died. The tailors and 
dressmakers show a similar depraved taste by filling 
their windows with horrid little monkeys, dressed 
out in the extreme of fashion, with velvets and laces 
and flounces, miraculous cravats, and gorgeous rib- 
bons, fans, canes, and opera glasses, till they really 



EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 65 

bear a frightful resemblance to some of the figures 
you meet in the streets, and are ashamed to acknowl- 
edge as human, like yourself and your humble ser- 
vant, 

Dunn Browne. 

5 



66 MR. DUNN BROWNE'S 



CHAPTER XVI. 



"DEMANDS HIS PASSPORTS," NOT BEING INVITED TO 
A GREAT PUBLIC FESTIVAL. 



Have spent the past week, this last week of my 
stay in the city, before departing to the depths of 
Germany to den up for the winter, amidst the meer- 
schaums and the gutturals, in finishing up a variety 
of promiscuous and miscellaneous sight-seeing, and 
in getting my passport vise at some twenty different 
legations in all quarters of the city. This ast pro- 
cess is a trifle more serious than one would be likely, 
at first, to imagine. That part of Europe which I 
am about to visit being divided into a series of king- 
doms, duchies, principalities, and republics, each 
about the size of a good Illinois farm, and their 
agents being scattered over all Paris, and changing 
their residence continually, and each requiring at 
least two visit's, one to find out the two hours or so 
in a day during which the office is open, and the 
other to get your business attended to certainly the 



EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 67 

patriarch of Uz is the only man on record who would 
be likely to find this a pleasant and agreeable duty. 
And I believe that even Job, when he found that, be- 
sides all his trouble, he must sell a camel or two to 
pay fees at about half these legations, would wish 
himself back again among the Chaldeans. Have 
just returned frorrf the office of the Prefect of the po- 
lice, from whom I have obtained permission to leave 
Paris, after informing him of my age, residence, pro- 
fession, destination, time of departure, and route by 
which I intend to go. (I did not mention the num- 
ber of shirts I shall carry, nor say any thing about a 
large paper bag of sandwiches just prepared for re- 
freshment on the way.) 

By some unaccountable mistake, or perhaps by 
some intentional diplomatic slight, I did not receive 
an invitation to be present at the closing of the Pal- 
ace of Industry on Thursday, and so was obliged to 
take an outside ticket, and stand an hour amongst a 
crowd of people who were all taller than I, waiting to 
see the imperial procession pass by. Obtained a fine 
view, however, (under the arm of a tall coachman in 
livery,) of the emperor and empress, as they rode 
slowly and smilingly past in an eight horse coach 
completely covered with gold and diamonds and 
spangled footmen. The royal couple endured their 



68 MR. DUNN BKOWNE'S 

part in the pageant very gracefully, yet looked as if 
they fully agreed with me in thinking the whole 
thing a decided bore. The imperial luminaries hav- 
ing set, (behind the doors of the great palace,) your 
unworthy correspondent departed from that vast 
concourse of the living, to find himself soon in the 
midst of an equally numerous' but not so noisy, 
multitude of skeletons of the dead, at the immense 
anatomical museum of the School of Medicine, a 
collection of wonderful interest and beauty, without 
any thing repulsive or shocking. Not so the Museum 
Dupuytren, of morbid, diseased anatomy, which I 
visited next; the most ghastly and horrible place I 
was ever in, full of all manner of monsters, abortions, 
and unsightly malformations ; skeletons twisted into 
every possible species of deformity ; all the members 
and organs of the human system exhibited in every 
stage of the most frightful and disgusting diseases ; 
loathsome tumors, cancers, and ulcers which seemed 
to emit offensive odors though only modelled in wax; 
in short an abominable collection, fitted to give one 
the nightmare, and which ought never to be seen by 
anybody in a world of hope and happiness. (Re- 
marks to the same effect had been previously made 
to me, and were my chief inducement for visiting it.) 
Stepped into the Morgue on the way home, and 



EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 69 

saw the body of a poor drowned man stretched out 
on one of those dismal benches, where so many- 
thousands of friendless wretches have taken their 
turn before him, waiting for some chance passer-by 
to recognize and claim the remains for burial. 

Having proceeded so far in this line of sight- 
seeing, I attempted next to get into the Catacombs, 
and failing of that, went out to the cemetery of Pere 
le Chaise, a regular city of the dead, with narrow 
streets, and crowded with inhabitants. I never could 
rest comfortably, I am certain, with my mortal re- 
mains confined to such a narrow space, and packed 
in among such a miscellaneous multitude. Mount 
Auburn, or Greenwood, or the cemetery at Spring- 
field, or any one of a dozen others I could name, 
is infinitely more beautiful, yet Pere le Chaise is 
full of the most costly and splendid monuments, 
and hallowed by thousands of illustrious names. 
The tomb of Abelard and Heloise is the oldest, the 
grave of Marshal Ney the most interesting, from the 
fact that it has no stone and no record ; a little iron- 
inclosed plat of ground planted with flowers, and 
that is all. The common people are packed in just 
as closely as the coffins can lie, and the graves are 
marked with simple wooden crosses, which, in a few 
years, are all swept away, and a new generation 
buried on the same ground. 



70 MR. DUNN BROWNE'S 



CHAPTER XVII. 



WAITING AT THE STATION. 



Having rashly entangled himself in the intricacies 
and perplexities of a French railway guide, your 
unfortunate friend and correspondent finds himself, 
in consequence, writing this present epistle in the 
Paris station, instead of being half way to Brussels 
on the wings of steam. Tumbled out of bed at 
six o'clock this morning, and hurried away coffeeless, 
through the cold, drizzling rain, for the sake of an 
early start, and now find that our train leaves at 
half past nine. What nuisances railroads are, in- 
deed ! And for people to pretend that they save 
time ! Let them come and stop two hours in this 
cold depot, that's all, pinned down here, too, as I 
am by a lot of baggage which can't be checked till 
just before the train starts. Ah ! my dear reader, let 
me warn you never to bring any thing with you on a 
foreign voyage but a single change of linen, and a 



EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 71 

t 

heart possessed of patience. The amount of money 
and mental anxiety that two carpet bags have cost 
me is almost incalculable. There, I will leave the 
things here, while I go to yonder restaurant for 
coffee and a "bifteck," and may the man who steals 
that baggage find it as great a plague as its present 
possessor has done, is the worst I can wish him ! * * 
Those stars indicate, not the suppression of any 
part of this precious epistle, but only the lapse of 
time necessary to fill an "aching void" in a region 
just below the heart of the writer thereof; and 
may also symbolize the brightness of the pair of 
glorious black eyes which would doubtless have 
made an impression on the susceptible heart above 
mentioned, had not the face to which they belonged, 
been slightly dirty. The hair, too, of the gentle 
maiden was uncombed, and her dress decidedly 
dishwatery in its general effect, besides bearing dark 
evidences of a recent visit to the coal-hole ; in short, 
that restaurant demoiselle had not expected visitors 
to breakfast at quite so early an hour ; nevertheless, 
the grace of a true French woman did not desert her, 
and, by some mysterious process, those grease stains 
and coal-spots grew less and less noticeable, and 
finally disappeared altogether, like spots on the sun 
when you throw away the sjnoked glass. As I came 



72 mr. dunn browne's 

out of the room, she seemed a very neatly attired 
young person indeed. 

My baggage, unfortunately, is all safe, and clings 
to me with the pertinacity of an inveterate bore, 
which, in truth, it is. You never need fear having 
any thing stolen in Paris, however. They know 
tricks here worth a dozen of that, and will entice the 
money out of your pocket in the most gentlemanly, 
courteous, friendly, and truly agreeable manner, with- 
out once resorting to that stupid, obsolete practice 
which may bring them into unpleasant relations 
with the police. 

Ah, what a volume of sound to come from the 
throat of such an infinitesimal of a boy ! Here, 
thou very linnet of a gargon, what hast thou to sell ? 
The " Journal pour Eire ? " Well, let us see what 
the Parisians have been laughing at this week. 
" Reserved places for the monster instrumental con- 
cert at the Palace of Industry." And where do you 
think those same places are ? Why, out around the 
fountains of the Place de la Concorde, about a half 
a mile distant. And next, here is a picture of a 
fat butcher, committing suicide by falling upon his 
own knife, having been reduced to that desperate 
act by reading the police regulations of the price 
of meat. " An ingenious method of making in a 



EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 73 

few minutes a pair of excellent shoes," which the 
picture shows us is done by cutting off the tops of 
a pair of new boots. " Fifty years hence, the man 
who will invent stage-coaches will make his for- 
tune." This little hit at railways is very consonant 
with my feelings, at the present time. " Fifty years 
hence, the journals will record this interesting dis- 
covery : ' It has just been ascertained that feathers 
from the wings of geese, prepared in a certain man- 
ner, form a delightful substitute for those abominable 
little bits of pointed iron with which we now write. 
So this much calumniated animal is about to render 
us a new service by delivering us for ever from the 
nuisance of steel pens.' " And here is a column of 
most execrable French puns, to deliver me from 
which there goes, in good time, the bell for our train 
"long looked for, come at last," and just ready to go 

with, Yours in perils, by land and sea, and by rail- 

« 

road. 



74 mr. dunn Browne's 



CHAPTER XVIII. 

BRUSSELS, (WITH WATERLOO OMITTED). 

I have arrived in safety at the end of my first day's 
journey, as, indeed, could not well have happened 
otherwise, for, when an individual is once ticketed 
and labelled for any place by a French railway, it is 
utterly impossible for him, willing or unwilling, to 
avoid getting there at the precise time specified. 
He is so watched and guarded and locked in, and 
constantly looked after, that no matter how com- 
plicated may be the route, no matter how many 
changes of cars, he is not allowed to stay in, or get 
into, the wrong place for a single instant, he cannot 
get himself left behind at a way station if he tries, he 
cannot lose himself, nor commit suicide under the 
wheels, nor escape his destination in any other imag- 
inable way. One can hardly help, under such ex- 
cessive care, being a little suspicious of a prison at 
the other end of his route, and looks down, from 



EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 75 

time to time, almost involuntarily to see if his panta- 
loons are particolored. 

The country we have passed through is rather 
uninteresting, as indeed is*almost any country in 
November, full of forests planted in regular rows, 
women working in the beet fields just like the men, 
ploughs with two or three wheels and machinery 
enough for a locomotive, moss-covered, thatched 
houses, and clumsy wind-mills. Among the most 
remarkable incidents of travel to day, I saw a man 
in a railway station eating hard-boiled eggs shells 
and all, and another in the cars making his break- 
fast of a piece of bread and a cigar, taking alter- 
nately a whiff and a bite. 

I was greatly interested, as we stopped a few min- 
utes in an old French town, to see a score of little 
girls play hide and seek in wooden shoes on the 
stone pavement. The way the little, tiny creatures 
stole along on tiptoe over the stones in their awkward 
clogs, about as silently as a yoke of oxen with an 
empty cart, and pretended not to hear one another's 
echoing steps, and went spying away into corners 
where they knew there was n't anybody, and passed 
resolutely by others where half a dozen little curly 
heads were peering anxiously out, and so sacrificed 
themselves and suspended the use of several of their 



76 mr. dunn Browne's 

senses for the good of the game, was an instance of 
the pursuit of fun under difficulties such as one 
rarely sees. And they laughed so joyously and in 
such good English that it was quite delightful ; and 
I could have found it in my heart to stop and take 
a game with them, if our watchful guards would 
have allowed me. 

In a bit of difficulty I fell into at the frontier, 
owing to the custom-house officers not understand- 
ing their native language very well, a handsome 
young Dutchman addressed me in very good Eng- 
lish, helped me out of my quandary, and has been 
my very amusing and obliging companion ever since. 
And indeed these Flemish people are altogether the 
most polite and kind, and agreeable folks I have yet 
seen, though they do, it must be confessed, drink the 
most unseemly and incredible quantities of beer ; 
some of the old guzzlers positively swallowing thirty 
or forty pints in a single evening. The great room 
'of the hotel where I am now sitting, (with a glass of 
that same refreshing liquid standing by the side of 
my inkstand,) contains nearly a hundred people, 
every one drinking beer, and talking — let us see — 
I can distinguish French, German, Flemish, and 
English, at least four different languages. The 
young Dutchman above spoken of and myself have 



EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 77 

taken a stroll round the town since our arrival. It 
is an exceedingly well-built city with a delightful 
little park full of noble elms and oaks ; at least two 
fine old churches containing not much in the way of 
pictures, but some good statues and very curious oak 
carving ; a tolerable palace ; an arcade decidedly 
more magnificent than any thing of the kind in either 
Paris or London; and an equestrian statue of God- 
frey of Bouillon which is really worth a voyage 
across the Atlantic to see. The noble crusader has 
just that air of mingled valor and devotion whicb 
befits the heroic conqueror of Jerusalem, who refused 
to wear a crown of gold in the city where his Re- 
deemer had borne a crown of thorns. 



78 MR. DUNN BROWNE'S 



CHAPTER XIX. 



COLOGNE. 



Succeeding by a desperate effort in getting up suf- 
ficiently early, I breakfasted and left the pleasant cap- 
ital of Belgium before 6i o'clock, A. M. Passed 
through a series of prettily built towns and some of 
the most romantic and delightful scenery along 
towards the Prussian frontier, but after entering 
Prussia, a rather flat and dull country again, and at 
last, after enjoying a cold ride of eight hours and 
meeting no obstructions save a few police officers, 
we reached the ancient walled town of Cologne, 
(name in good odor all over the world,) with its un- 
finished cathedral and " no end " of guides. I never 
was so pestered in my life. Started from my hotel 
to visit the cathedral. Several beset me at once in 
three different languages to take a guide. I pointed 
to the stately old pile in plain sight before us, and 
politely answered them in the same number of Ian- 



EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 79 

guages that I didn't want any guide and wouldn't 
have one if he would pay me for the privilege. They 
polyglotically persisted in assuring me that I never 
could find the cathedral alone, and followed hard af- 
ter me a street or two, but by preserving a resolute 
silence, I at length shook them off; defeated two 
more detachments of the enemy on my way, by ask- 
ing them if they spoke Choctaw, and obstinately re- 
fusing to understand any other language whatever, 
and so at last came along-side the object of my search. 
Being fairly beaten off by the numbers who attacked 
me at the side door, I proceeded round to the front, 
and made up my mind to enter at all hazards, and 
enter accordingly I did, with a foe attached to each 
coat-tail, and others spread out behind like a pea- 
cock's train. Affairs getting thus desperate, I turned 
about just inside the door, facing my pursuers: " Gen- 
tlemen, I do not desire your assistance in the least. 
I wish to look at this old church a few moments in 
peace without anybody to bore me with the precise 
height of all the arches and age of every pillar, and 
name of every musty old archbishop who is buried in 
the chapels. I will never pay one of you a red cent. 
Will you be kind enough to leave me alone ? " This 
broadside scattered that party, but the conflict had to 
be renewed in every corner of the edifice. It is un- 



80 mr. dunn browne's 

doubtedly much the cheapest way to hire one of 
these pertinacious individuals just to scare away the 
others, and probably by the payment of a double fee 
you might prevail upon him to follow you in silence, 
and keep his superabundant information till it was 
called for. The cathedral itself, apart from the 
guides and the scaffoldings, is wonderfully beautiful 
and dreadfully shabby, so old that it is crumbling to 
pieces, and so new that it is n't yet half finished, and 
probably never will be till the world and all things 
therein are finished together. 

Having read and admired the great " poem in 
stone" for a considerable time, I proceeded to pay my 
respects to the " 11,000 virgins," who have left their 
bones piled up in the church of St. Ursula as a sort 
of anatomical museum for the edification of the faith- 
ful through many generations. They are very fantas- 
tically arranged, arms in one place, ribs in another, 
etc. ; the skulls mostly under glass cases, each with 
its own pious legend and little embroidered cap, all 
very pretty and affecting. 

In the evening I walked over the Rhine on the cu- 
rious bridge of boats, also circulated promiscuously 
about the queer old city, (which is more like Rouen 
than any place I have seen,) causing the greatest 
anxiety on the part of my good landlord, who thought 



EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 81 

I must surely be deranged to rush out into the 
crooked streets of a strange town where I couldn't 
speak the language of the inhabitants. I told him it 
was ridiculous to think of losing a Yankee in a lit- 
tle city of one hundred thousand inhabitants, sur- 
rounded, too, by a high wall. He shook his head and 
remarked that the Americans were a strange people, 
and I noticed a look of great relief pass over his 
countenance as I entered, at nine o'clock, safe and 
sound. The most noticeable thing about the inhab- 
itants of Cologne and the German people generally, 
is their intolerable stupidity. Coming from France, 
where every official answers your questions with the 
utmost readiness and precision, I had neglected pro- 
curing Bradshaw's Continental railroad guide, and 
could not in all Cologne find out the proper route to 
Gottingen, a little more than a hundred miles distant, 
was misdirected at last at the ticket office of the road 
that connects directly with that to Gottingen, sent 
twenty-five miles out of the way, and compelled to 
spend two days in getting where I might have ar- 
rived in eight or nine hours. In short, or rather, at 
length, I feel on arriving at this place that, if never 
before, now certainly, I have acquired a full and per- 
fect right to subscribe myself, yours truly, 

Dunn Browne. 
6 



82 MR. DUNN BROWNE'S 



CHAPTER XX. 

GERMAN RAILWAYS AND FIRES. 

The railway is certainly one of the best ways in 
which to study the character of a people. The mu- 
sical tendencies of the people of Belgium and Prus- 
sia appear in the circumstance that the conductor 
invariably carries a bugle to announce the departure 
of the trains, and its cheerful " Tra ra la " is a very 
pretty improvement on the groans and shrieks with 
which an American locomotive suggests to the pas- 
sengers the propriety of getting ready for a start; 
those ominous sounds which seem to forewarn the 
thoughtless traveller of the fate that very probably 
awaits him at the next bridge. The notes of the 
horn have the further advantage of enabling the 
guard to convey considerable information as to the 
size and importance of the various stopping places. 
A single, short, contemptuous toot of the trumpet 
announces a mere hamlet, not worth the trouble of 
looking out the windows at; a more prolonged note, 



EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 83 

or a fragment of a tune, proclaims a place of consid- 
erable size ; and a fine, large city calls out from the 
gracious official all his skill in a regular little instru- 
mental concert. Once, however, happening to look 
back, I observed quite a populous city at a station 
where our conductor had vouchsafed but a single 
note. Here, no doubt, was some private pique, some 
personal feud with the inhabitants, which led to their 
being thus slandered by the revengeful bugle, but 
taking for granted an honest guard, with no private 
animosity to gratify, I can almost promise to give 
you the precise number of inhabitants along the 
whole route without once looking at the map, with 
no other data than that nicely discriminating bugle- 
horn. 

To the eastward from Cologne, however, the music 
is not heard on the railroads, and the scream of the 
old engine sounds out again hoarser and harsher than 
ever. An ordinary train upon one of these German 
roads is about the most leisurely method of getting 
over the ground that I have ever tried except walk- 
ing, and I did make a calculation one day whereby 
I concluded it would be easy to gain two miles an 
hour by going on foot, but that was before I knew 
the difference between a German and an English 
mile, so those figures were wasted. The train stops 



84 MR. DUNN BKOWNE'S 

at every station, a man walks quietly along its whole 
length and unlocks the doors ; the guards, engineers, 
etc., go in and take a few glasses of beer ; by-and-by 
the man walks along again slowly and locks up the 
doors ; pretty soon a large bell strikes, then the loco- 
motive whistles, then a little bell tolls a few minutes, 
then the conductor bids the smiling bar-maid, with 
whom he has been chatting, good-by, and blows his 
little tin whistle ; then the large bell strikes again, 
the engine whistles once more, and very soon, if no 
new passengers have arrived meanwhile, makes two 
or three false motions forward and backward, and 
gets gruntingly under way, to repeat the same per- 
formance with variations at the next town. One 
consolation under this mode of progression is that 
there is not the slightest danger of accidents, for 
even if two trains were approaching each other, the 
passengers would have ample time to get out before 
the collision, or if they chose to abide the shock 
within, would probably meet with no more serious 
injury than a slight disarrangement of curls or the 
downfall of a hat. 

A German fire, though, is a decidedly slower op- 
eration than even the railroad. Fortunately the 
houses are built in such a substantial manner that it 
is almost impossible to burn one, and a fire doesn't 



EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 85 

occur, for instance, here in Gottingen, once in five 
years, I am told. A house managed to get kindled, 
however, the other night, and the ten or twelve thou- 
sand inhabitants of the place, with the exception of a 
few sick and infirm people, assembled by beat of drum, 
and sought to drown the fire with noise, screaming 
themselves hoarse, ringing the bells and blowing 
trumpets. Three or four little antiquated engines 
which had long since fallen into their second child- 
hood, came out and made wheezy efforts to throw 
water upon the burning roof, but could n't possibly 
play higher than the third story windows, and so, 
having sprinkled a part of the thick stone wall with 
a few pails of water, (which was brought by a long 
line of men in buckets and poured into them,) ceased 
their efforts and left the fire to expire of itself, after 
leisurely burning up every thing combustible within 
its reach. 



86 MR. DUNN BROWNE'S 



CHAPTER XXI. 



A UNIVERSITY TOWN. 



Gottingen is a sort of German " Sleepy Hollow," 
admirably adapted for a university town, for one is 
absolutely driven to study as the only attainable 
amusement. Nothing can be more primitive and 
homely, and comfortable, and monotonous, and hon- 
est, than the entire arrangement of things, the whole 
system of operations, the business, manners, and cus- 
toms throughout the city. Every thing here was fin- 
ished long, long ago, and has become gray and ven- 
erable, crumbling and moss-covered. There isn't a 
sharp corner nor a fresh bit of paint anywhere to be 
seen or run against. The houses are bowed down 
with years at various angles from the perpendicular, 
and each has a character of its own, worn and 
wrinkled into its expressive old features. Not a sin- 
gle young upstart tenement has dared to rise in their 
midst for centuries, and carpenters and masons are 
become quite an obsolete institution. None of these 



EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 87 

houses have but one entrance, a pair of huge doors, 
or gates rather, through which come and go car- 
riages, horses, ladies and gentlemen, loads of hay, 
children, servants, dogs, cows, and pigs, without in- 
terfering with each other, all alike eminently respect- 
able and well-behaved. Any kind of dress which is 
comfortable is in the fashion, and you can get a pair 
of boots made large enough for you. An old watch- 
man perambulates the streets through the night sing- 
ing out the hour in a monotonous, sleep-inspiring 
tone, together with various pious precepts and some 
sound advice in regard to raking out fires and fas- 
tening up doors, which have thus been nightly re- 
peated in the somnolent ears of the inhabitants from 
time immemorial, and without which doubtless no 
Paterfamilias could rest comfortably between his two 
feather beds. A German bedstead is a sort of coffin 
about five feet long and two wide, into which a 
body squeezes himself and passes the night com- 
pletely buried in feathers, and digs himself out in 
the morning exhausted and suffocated by the un- 
wholesome covering, unless indeed he has had 
sufficient strength to kick it off at the first experi- 
ence of its stiffing effects. I never endured the 
thing but one night, during which I dreamed of un- 
dergoing no less than four distinct deaths, one by an 
anaconda necklace, one by a hempen ditto, one by 



88 MR. DUNN BROWNE'S 

the embrace of a grizzly bear, and a fourth in the 
press of a cider-mill. A German coffin on the other 
hand is a large, exceedingly heavy box with four 
stout legs, something like a French bedstead, roofed 
over, (the roof is just like that of a house, the two 
boards which compose it being placed at an angle 
with one another,) and is hung with festoons of 
flowers and ribbons. The funeral services are very 
impressive ; but the church fees and funeral expenses 
are so enormous that I don't see how any but a few 
of the very wealthiest people can afford to die. 

There are some ten or fifteen Americans now con- 
nected with the Gottingen University, most of them 
studying chemistry under the celebrated Wohler. 
Not having much taste for the natural sciences, and 
especially considering chemistry as an unpleasantly 
smelling branch of study, I have confined my re- 
searches in that direction to attendance upon a sin- 
gle lecture of Prof. Wohler. He is a small, thin, 
scholarly-looking man, with prominent features, 
sharp eyes, and a feeble voice, who lectured in a quiet, 
familiar way, without any ceremony, talking in all 
directions, sometimes towards the heavens, some- 
times against the blackboard facing the class, so 
that they had to catch the w T ords as they rebound- 
ed, very frequently into the neck of a jar or bottle, 
and sometimes pouring a sentence or two into a 



EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 89 

drawer he chanced to open, into the coal hole or 
up the chimney ; so that on the whole, I did not un- 
derstand it very clearly, that part which was to be 
heard, that is, that part which was to be seen and 
smelled, (as the subject happened to be the various 
compounds of sulphur,) was very easy of comprehen- 
sion, a great deal clearer in fact than the atmosphere 
of the lecture room. The professor is in delicate 
health, looks much worn, and very likely will not 
give many more courses of lectures. He is rather 
proud of his American students, and pays them a 
little extra attention. They are a fine set of young 
fellows who have made my stay here very agreeable, 
and to whom I owe many thanks. I trust each one 
of them will rise to the head of his profession when 
he returns to his country. 

Of the German students, I have seen very little. 
They are a rather fine looking body of youngsters, I 
thought, as they passed in procession at the funeral 
of the late Professor Fuchs, and study probably as 
hard as the same class of persons in other countries, 
certainly infinitely better than American boys would 
if left to themselves without any daily recitations to 
attend. It seems to me that a German student's 
life is the most perfectly independent life that a man 
can live, and it is no wonder they have ever been 
leaders in the revolutions of Germany. 



90 mr. dunn Browne's 

The scenery in this vicinity is the most like that 
of New England of any which I have yet found, and 
the weather also is real New England weather, cold, 
sharp, and bracing. We have had about a week's 
sleighing, and amusing enough is it to see the way 
they have here of posting a man on a little project- 
ing seat behind the sleigh, for nothing else but to 
crack the whip. He is not the driver at all, but has 
an immense supernumerary whip which goes off con- 
tinually with a report like a pistol. Now take a 
dozen two-horse sleighs with such an accompani- 
ment behind, and the horses covered with great bells 
and going at full speed, and you can get a little idea 
of a grand student sleigh ride in Gottingen. 



EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 91 



CHAPTER XXII. 

CHRISTMAS AT THE "KRONE." 

To-night is Christmas eve, and all the Americans 
are invited to spend it with Herr Bettmann, mine 
host at the " Krone," (name ever dear to the Ameri- 
cans who have visited Gottingen,) where is to be a 
Christmas tree and a general jollification. We are 
to draw tickets in a lottery of knick-knacks and little 
trinkets. We are to see the annual presents which 
good Father Bettmann bestows upon his children 
and domestics, and the little tokens which they hang 
on the " Tree " for him and for each other. We are 
to hear beautiful music and make ourselves agreea- 
ble to the Herr's pretty daughters in the best German 
we can muster, as well as listen to the Herr's gra- 
cious speech in English in honor of his American 
guests, and such English ! I fear me much our ut- 
most stretch of politeness will not enable us to un- 
derstand it very perfectly. We are to have a bit of 
a supper and see the color of our Host's best wine, 



92 mr. dunn browne's 

and find out perhaps whether the real juice of the 
grape, without any drugs or dye-stufTs in it, is a 
proper article to taste or not. We are, in short, to 
get a little glimpse of a German family Christmas 
gathering, to have a quiet pleasant time to-night ; 
and then to-morrow your humble servant leaves for 
Vienna, Trieste, Alexandria, and the Pyramids, hop- 
ing to return by way of Palestine and Greece. 
What do you think of that for a bold enterprise for 
an individual with less than two hundred and fifty 
dollars in his pocket? I think the expedition of Na- 
poleon into those same regions wasn't a circum- 
stance in comparison. I haven't the slightest idea 
how much it will cost to get from anywhere to any- 
where, nor how many camels and Bedouins it will 
be necessary to buy, but I have already travelled so 
far with one two hundred dollars, that I consider it 
a sinful distrust of Providence to doubt my ability 
to get considerably further with another ; and then 
as for coming back, why, whatever goes up must 
come down, whatever goes east must naturally come 
west again, along with the sun, moon, and the star 
of empire, and the general tendency of things, all 
which is in that direction. 

I have studied German in the last month just 
enough to forget my French, and now talk a jar- 



EXPERIENCES IN EOREIGN PARTS. 93 

gon hashed up from the odds and ends of three 
different languages. When to my present attain- 
ments are added a smattering of Arabic, Turkish, 
Syriac, modern Greek, and Italian, I shall not ex- 
pect to be understood at all, unless perchance I 
should visit the site of the ancient Tower of Babel. 
I have greatly enjoyed studying German. My 
teachers have been two bright boys of seventeen 
who are learning English, and the way we have mu- 
tually slaughtered the two poor languages, has been 
amusing enough. They couldn't pronounce my 
"th" and I couldn't pronounce their "ch." I have 
stumbled over their " g's," and they have tripped 
against our " w's," and we have corrected each other's 
mistakes, read, talked, and disputed with one another, 
and been of the greatest mutual advantage. It is 
the very best way of acquiring a language in my 
opinion, besides being the cheapest, as you pay the 
teacher in his own coin. The German, although 
much harder to learn, is much easier to hear than the 
French, but both are six times as difficult to learn 
as the English, because they insist on attaching an 
arbitrary gender to all inanimate objects instead of 
leaving them neuter as God made them, and as the 
English language wisely allows them to remain. 
What reason is there, for instance, why "spoon" 



94 MR. DUNN BROWNE'S 

should be masculine and "fork" feminine? And 
yet to talk German you must remember it, reason 
or no reason. I will not enter just now, however, 
into a philological dissertation. May something 
happen before I write again. 



EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 95 



CHAPTER XXIII. 

STARTS FOR THE ORIENT. 

There is no country life in Germany, as in our 
own beautiful New England. Everybody lives 
crowded together in cities and city-like villages. 
You will travel for miles through a beautiful region, 
over hills and dales, where you expect every mo- 
ment to see the pretty country residences and farm- 
houses and cottages, and find not a habitation till 
you come down into a little dirty low village, with 
the houses joining one another like a city, and the 
gutters in the middle of the narrow, roughly-paved 
streets, and the dogs, pigs, and still dirtier women 
and children occupying the gutters, streets, and 
houses all in common, promiscuously grunting, 
squealing, jabbering, crying, and barking in villa- 
nous Low German. I have never seen any thing 
more disgusting than three or four of these filthy 
hamlets, which we passed through in getting from 
Gottingen to Cassel by post. 



96 me. dunn Browne's 

The German post-wagon or mail-coach is a huge, 
lumbering, inconvenient contrivance, at least four 
times as heavy as an American one, carrying two 
coachmen and having accommodations for only 
four or six passengers, which makes the expense 
needlessly great. We were seven hours with four 
sets of horses (four each) - in making that distance 
of seven or eight German miles, or about thirty 
English miles, over a most excellent road, too, but 
these stupid people can't be persuaded to make 
any change in. the good old ways handed down 
from former generations. It is very hard for a 
Yankee to have any patience with this kind of 
travelling, especially in the winter, but the natives 
wrap themselves up in two overcoats and a vast 
fur cloak, put their feet into a monstrous fur bag, 
lay in a large stock of sausages and other favorite 
provisions, a couple of bottles of wine and one of 
brandy, bring along a meerschaum, a bundle of 
cigars, and a box of matches, shut up all the win- 
dows closely, and in this atmosphere of comfort 
and smoke care not for the length of the journey. 

Cassel is no doubt a delightful city in summer, 
with its mountain and beautiful parks, but in winter 
has nothing of especial interest except a fine statue 
of that one of its sovereigns who sold his subjects to 



EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 97 

England for the American war, and an immense un- 
finished palace, which was built with the money 
thus obtained. Some five millions of dollars were 
expended in raising the walls about ten feet high, 
and then the work was abandoned, and remains a 
monument of princely folly. So perish all the treas- 
ures thus acquired ! The present ruler is a very in- 
ferior-looking personage who has a rather pretty wife, 
and rides in a carriage drawn by the two finest 
black horses I have seen. 

The next place of interest on the route to Dresden 
is the castle of Wartburg, where Luther was im- 
prisoned in the house of his friends. It crowns the 
summit of a mountain hard by the little town of 
Eisenach, and commands a most magnificent pros- 
pect in all directions. The interior of the castle 
has nothing remarkable in its appearance, and the 
armor and other curiosities there preserved, hardly 
pay for the trouble of seeing, so the whole interest 
of the place centres in the Luther's chamber. I of 
course inscribed my name amidst the ten thousand 
that are written under and around the ink-spot on 
the wall that marks the place where the Devil had 
such a narrow escape from becoming a shade blacker 
than his natural color. The spot remains quite dis- 
tinct and fresh, and has, I have no doubt, a new ink- 

7 



98 mr. dunn browne's 

bottle thrown at it every year for preservation. The 
room is not in the castle itself, but in an adjoining 
building now used as a beer saloon, and infested by 
all the roisterers of the neighborhood ; at least on 
the day I visited it, there were collected at least a 
hundred, drinking and smoking and singing at a rate 
which would have seriously disturbed the great re- 
former's meditations if he were still a resident of 
his " Patmos." I had barely time to examine the 
relics and furniture of the apartment, and sit a few 
moments on the whale's vertebra, which was used 
by Luther as a footstool, take another last glimpse 
at the grand and varied scenery, and slip down the 
icy mountain in time for the train to Erfurt, where I 
have just arrived, at nine o'clock Wednesday evening, 
December 26, 1855. 



EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 99 



CHAPTER XXIV. 

ERFURT TO DRESDEN. 

Made an exploration of this fortified Prussian 
city from nine to eleven, P. M., wandering about 
alone, as usual, gathering information from all the 
people I fell in with, meeting with a variety of little 
amusing adventures, and getting a magnificent 
moonlight view of the odd old two-storied cathedral, 
which is a rather stupid building by daylight I am 
told, but was perfectly enchanting and poetical by 
Luna's gentle beams. Forgot the name of my 
hotel, and lost my points of compass a little in 
wandering around and under and over the cathedral, 
so that I began to think it would be necessary to 
seek other quarters for the night, but rambling along 
with a young soldier who was just off duty as sen- 
tinel, and was much interested in talking about 
America, we came to a house which looked a little 
natural, and going in found it was all right, so the 



100 mr. dunn Browne's 

young sentinel bade me a very affectionate farewell, 
and I soon retired to the everlasting two feather- 
beds, but succeeded at last in making arrangements 
with the chambermaid for the removal of the upper 
one. She imparted to me several items of interest- 
ing information, one of which was, that there are 
no other beds in Germany than these little narrow 
ones, and so husband and wife have two ranged side 
by side, and she evidently considered the American 
custom rather improper. 

Early in the morning after effecting an entrance 
almost by violence into the old monastery, where 
Luther first found the Bible, (which building is now 
occupied as an orphan asylum,) I spent a few mo- 
ments in his little cell, which contains most of his 
furniture and even his venerable inkstand, (not the 
same one probably which was used as a projectile at 
Wartburg,) wherein to I also dipped my pen, and 
without breaking off from the train of reflections 
inspired by such a visit, succeeded in getting on to 
the train for Leipsic, having enjoyed my little hur- 
ried moonlight glimpse of Erfurt as well perhaps as 
if time had permitted a week's visit. Stopped a 
half hour at the dull old university town of Halle, 
and spent the afternoon in busy, bustling Leipsic; 
busy at least now, in the time of the great Christ- 



EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 101 

mas fair ; the streets crowded with booths and 
thronged with buyers and sellers from all Germany, 
and the rest of the world too, if one were to judge 
by the variety of costumes presented to the eye. 
The most curious was that of the peasant girls, clad 
in long black stockings with red garters at the knee, 
a coarse blue or green petticoat reaching down to 
the same point, so close as hardly to allow any 
movement of the limbs, and a loose tunic of some 
gay color fastened with a knotted girdle at the waist.. 
Not wishing to be a mere idle spectator of the- 
busy scene, and noticing that leather seemed to be 
the leading article in the market, your humble ser- 
vant proceeded to examine a whole street full of sole 
leather, assisted by the anxious sellers of the same,, 
setting down a variety of prices and qualities on a 
bit of paper, with a view to very extensive pur- 
chases, but before bringing any negotiation actually 
to a crisis, became weary of business and tired of 
the smell of leather, so ceasing the scrutiny of a 
merchant and assuming the more careless air of a 
mere observer, passed through the city in two or 
three directions, walked around the Boulevards,, 
(which are very fine, planted with noble trees) ;. 
reconnoitred the castle of Pleissenburg with an in- 
tensely military look; conversed a few minutes in* 



102 me. dunn Browne's 

reference to its strength with a very erect officer with 
mustachios actually at least five inches in length ; 
took a glass of wine with the same fiercely polite 
individual in the famous " Auerbach's cellar," where 
Goethe has laid one of the most striking scenes of 
his " Faust," (every one will recollect the German 
students' drinking scene, where Mephistophiles draws 
all sorts of liquors out of a hole in the table,) 
and hurried away to Dresden, the splendid capital 
of rich Saxony; at which place we -arrived too late 
for my usual evening exploration of the city, and 
T could only contrive one little adventure by losing 
my way to the hotel to which I had been recom- 
mended, and accepting the guidance of a little curly- 
headed boy, who took me very naturally to an inn 
kept by his own father, which although perhaps 
not remarkably elegant in its accommodations, has 
at least the merit of being cheap enough, (five 
groschen, or twelve and a half cents, for lodgings). 
The kind old lady, my hostess, has a son in America, 
(Rio Janeiro to be sure, but she, good old soul, 
doesn't know but that Brazil and Massachusetts 
are adjoining states or different names for the same,) 
and so fixes up for my meals all sorts of German 
luxuries and delicacies, (I have tasted five different 
kinds of sausages yesterday and to-day). 



EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 103 



CHAPTER XXV. 



DRESDEN, THE SPLENDID. 



I have seen Raphael's famous " Madonna di San 
Sisto," and, unlike most famous and celebrated things, 
it surpasses all one's expectations. The face of the 
Virgin is the most lovely, pure, and holy countenance 
I ever gazed upon, or ever dreamed of, or ever pic- 
tured to my fancy. It is a perfect ideal of female 
beauty and heavenly virtue. And it is praise enough 
to say of the other figures of the picture, that they 
are worthy of a place beside that loveliest creation of 
earthly artist. The sweetness and innocence of the 
Divine Child, and in the lower part of the painting 
the noble features of the pious old man (San Sisto) 
in contrast with the youthful countenance of Santa 
Barbara, both upturned in rapt adoration, as also the 
two lovely cherubs who look admiringly up from be- 
neath, are all in harmony, and form one simple, uni- 
ted whole, which produces an effect all gentle and 
soothing, elevating, devotional. Even the little, 



104 MR. DUNN BROWNE'S 

chubby-faced, blue angels which form the sky in the* 
background, and which are an intolerable nuisance 
in most pictures of the kind, are so faintly portrayed 
and the coloring is so admirable, that they add to, 
rather than detract from, the general effect. After 
strolling through the whole Dresden gallery, I sat 
half an hour in communion with this glorious paint- 
ing, (which deservedly has a whole apartment to 
itself,) and again just before leaving for Prague, went 
in to take a farewell look; and it was like parting 
with a dear friend whose memory will ever abide with 
me, sweet and precious while I live, and such faces 
hope I to see in Heaven when I die. 

There are plenty more fine paintings in this gal- 
lery, but the most noted one, " La Notte " of Correg- 
gio, does n't at all suit the taste of the writer hereof, 
quite the contrary ; in fact it is decidedly ugly. 
Every thing about it appears strained and unnatural, 
full of affectation and striving after effect. It may, 
no doubt, be decidedly original, but many original 
things besides original sin are not beautiful. There 
is a beautiful " Mary Magdalen " by Correggio 
though, that one does n't need to be an artist to 
admire. Here are also Guido's " Christ crowned 
with thorns," of which everybody has seen a copy, 
and the celebrated " Tribute money " of Titian, and 



EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 105 

several fine modern paintings, one of which espe- 
cially, I greatly admired, representing Napoleon in his 
imperial robes, by Gerard. On the whole, the Dres- 
den gallery is an exceedingly satisfactory one to visit, 
admirably arranged in a noble new building, and not 
huge and endless like the Louvre to weary one by 
its vastness. 

The city of Dresden, too, is worthy of its reputa- 
tion, adorned with magnificent buildings, having an 
unrivalled terrace along the bank of the Elbe, two 
costly stone bridges, any number of palaces and col- 
lections of antiquities and the fine arts, beautiful 
parks, one of the finest theatres in the world, and two 
remarkable churches, one of which, the Frauenkirche, 
or church of the women, (why so called, I haven't 
any idea ; to be sure, only women go there usually, 
but that is true also of all the German churches,) 
deserves a whole letter of description to itself. It is 
of wonderful solidity, and has a lofty dome. The 
central portion of the edifice is a perfect circle, in 
whose circumference are eight massive pillars, which 
divide the outer portion into as many separate com- 
partments, each of which — save one for the altar — 
has five stories of galleries, and all have separate 
entrances and winding stone staircases built in the 
wall ; and then these galleries have such complicated 



106 mr. dunn Browne's 

internal arrangements, such varieties of seats and 
pews and boxes closed up like rooms with win- 
dows in front, such unexpected nooks and corners 
and hiding-places, that I felt it quite a mercy to get 
out of the labyrinth in safety. It is possible to see 
and hear the preacher only in a few of the most prom- 
inent parts of the building, which is more of a thea- 
tre than a church, and more of a beehive than a the- 
atre, but not much like any thing in the world save 
itself, and needs to be seen to be appreciated. 

Dresden is the first place where women have been 
in attendance to carry baggage from the station to 
the hotel. Here they do every thing. I saw three 
dogs and two women drawing a load of bricks not 
an hour ago, and a woman with an enormous basket 
of wood on her back leading a donkey with just 
about the same quantity on his back in panniers. 
Ah, in no country in the world are the women held 
in such consideration as in America, and no other 
country either has such women to care for. Thank 
God I am the son and the brother, and would that 
I could add also the husband, of an American 
woman. With which outburst of patriotic gallantry 
I think I may safely close this chapter. 



EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 107 



CHAPTER XXVI. 

PRAGUE, THE HOMELY. 

Through Saxon Switzerland, along the banks of 
the Elbe to Bodenbach, the Austrian frontier, is a 
most romantic country, a virgin earth that has never 
been defiled by the plough, an uncivilized region that 
has defied the weapons of man and retained its prim- 
itive independence. Rough cliffs rise up abruptly 
from the river, some one hundred, some three hun- 
dred, and some a thousand feet, full of chasms and 
abysses, dark, grim, and frowning, yet many of them 
wearing a glittering crown of snow, and covered 
down their sides with a green mantle of firs, wher- 
ever a tree or a bush can catch hold, or be tied on, or 
driven in. Here you see how an old moss-covered 
house has climbed up in its youth to a dizzy height, 
and fearing to descend, has remained seated on a pro- 
jecting ledge, and grown old and shaky and venerable; 
there you see a stone bridge by some magic thrown 
across a frightful ravine hundreds of feet in depth, 



108 mr. dunn browne's 

and yonder a little village squeezed into a crevice or 
fastened with mortar on to the steep mountain-side. 
Believe me, the winter is the time to travel through 
a wild, mountainous region. I have lost much I fear 
by deferring my visit to Switzerland till the approach- 
ing summer. The white snow, the green forests and 
the black cliffs, uniting in a thousand combinations, 
form such striking pictures, changing continually 
before our eyes, (an occasional tunnel answering for 
a curtain during the shifting of the scenes,) and pre- 
sent such a succession of glorious landscapes, that I 
feel exceedingly thankful that I am not an artist, lest 
I too should be tempted to put on canvas some of 
those caricatures of the face of nature which I have 
seen shamelessly paraded in the galleries, and 
admired and bepraised by those who pass with per- 
fect indifference through the most magnificent natu- 
ral scenery. Pictures of men and women and horses 
and animals and battles are all well enough in their 
way, but show me the man who can paint a tree as 
it ought to be painted not to be a mockery of that 
beautiful work of God, a single tree, or even but one 
branch, and it will be what I have not yet seen in 
any collection of landscapes. 

At the delightful little town of Bodenbach, with 
its great castle, graceful suspension bridge, its two 



EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 109 

railway tunnels in solid rock, and above all, its curi- 
ous houses with cunning little curved windows pre- 
cisely like eyes peeping out of the roof, first appears 
the gray Austrian uniform, and thenceforward polite 
police, officers hover ever about us and examine our 
passports just about as often as the conductor does 
our tickets. Everybody and every thing assumes a 
kind of subdued, governed aspect ; even nature her- 
self seems here at last to surrender to the arbitrary 
power of man. The proud craggy mountains hum- 
ble themselves into docile submissive hills, and allow 
their sleek sides to be curried into fertility by the har- 
row and the plough ; the free mo n arch s of the forest 
cower down into the tamest of fruit-trees ; all nature 
fairly ''flats out" into a big orchard, and presents 
such an aspect of cowardly servility that it is quite 
a comfort that night approaches to throw a veil of 
darkness over the degenerate scene. . . . Three 
hours refreshing sleep by the side of a plump 
Austrian dame, (don't be shocked, my dear friends, 
remember it was in a railway car,) and we are in 
Prague, another of those dear old towns, like Rouen 
and Cologne, which are not handsome nor well built, 
but are more interesting than twenty fine cities, if one 
will but ramble about in its nooks and corners to 
search out its curious sights. 



110 mr. dunn browne's 

After a hasty supper I sailed forth for a stroll, 
and it was like plunging into a bath of darkness. 
The lights are few and far between, and the whole 
city is full of tunnels and arches. You cannot get 
from one street into another, or on to a bridge or 
into a house even without creeping under a low 
arched passage, most curious arc/iitecture every- 
where I assure you. Didn't see very much in 
such a state of things, but talked an immense 
quantity of rather indifferent German with various 
victims who fell into my society on the way. One 
young musician wished to know what his prospects 
would be in America, and took out his flute to show 
me in the middle of a long bridge where it was so 
dark I could^not tell it from a pistol. Considering 
that a not very sharp action, I advised him not to 
go to America, saying that the Yankees were not 
very fond of any music but that of the hard dollars 
ringing on the counter. Conversed with several 
soldiers also, who were greatly shocked to hear of 
the smallness of our army in the United States, and 
wondered how order could be preserved, property 
protected, etc. But I will not bore you with a de- 
tail of all the little adventures of an evening in 
Prague, which would not probably be so amusing 
told in the day as they were acted in the dark among 



EXPERIENCES IN EOREIGN PARTS. Ill 

total strangers, speaking a foreign language. Suffice 
it to inform you of the safe arrival, before eleven 
o'clock, at his hotel, without a guide, of your humble 
traveller and servant. 



112 mr. dunn Browne's 



CHAPTER XXVII. 

A DOOR OPENS, AND SHUTS AGAIN. 

First I wish you a happy New- Year just as the 
clock has finished striking twelve, Tuesday morn- 
ing, January 1, 1856, in the coffee-room of a rail- 
way station at Briinn, some sixty miles or so from 
Vienna, where we stop two or three hours in the 
middle of the night and improve the time in eat- 
ing beefsteaks and drinking coffee, to which delight- 
ful employment I now turn, devoting the first hour 
of the new year to recruiting the system from the 

fatigues of the last ten hours of the old year 

There are about a dozen soldiers and as many fur- 
coated travellers lounging about the room, eating, 
smoking, and drinking beer, several pleasant ladies 
with immense muffs, several poor women with big 
bundles, and the usual number of railway officials. 
They are all exceedingly curious in regard to the 
" Americaner," ask me innumerable questions, re- 
peat my answers to one another and talk about me 



EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 113 

as freely as if I could n't understand a word they 
say, and now that I unscrew my little inkstand and 
sit down to write, they gaze at me with great atten- 
tion as if I were a sort of learned pig, and it was 
quite a treat to see that I knew how to use a pen. 
It is a little uncomfortable for so modest an individ- 
ual as myself to be the subject of such extreme 
curiosity, but travellers soon get over the weakness 
of blushing. A grave old gentleman in gray hair 
and gray fur coat has just been warning me very 
impressively not to gamble when I get to Vienna,, 
and I have at last satisfied him, I think, that my 
weakness doesn't lie in that particular direction. A 
little black-eyed Bohemian lass of a dozen years, 
asked me a few minutes ago if my mother knew 
where I was spending my New- Year's night. Do 
you, my dear mother? Then is maternal clairvoyr 
ance most clear-sighted of all. 

But I enjoyed good, motherly old Prague so well 
that I must even say a few things more about her... 
There are lots of churches within her bounds, built 
with no sort of taste, according to no rules of ar- 
chitecture, and within all gilt and tinsel, yet rather- 
interesting after all. One has two queer towers with* 
funny little towerets bursting out on all sides o£" 
them like top-onions. 

8 



114 mr. dunn browne's 

The fortifications are very strong, especially a sort 
of castle on a high hill in one corner. In my stroll 
this morning I walked up, as far as possible, till at 
last I came to an immense iron gate reaching quite 
across the street, and was turning to go away when lo, 
the massive folds unlocked with a tremendous crash, 
and swung majestically open, while two tall mus- 
tachioed sentinels, in steel breast plates and gray pan- 
taloons, armed with bayoneted muskets and swords 
drawn, appeared and, touching their helmets, begged 
to know what I wanted. Summoning up my polit- 
est German, I made the best explanation possible, 
and my interrogators, finding that no distinguished 
general or sovereign was seeking admittance, but 
only one of the sovereign Yankees taking a morning 
airing, retired with another grim salute, while the 
formidable iron jaws shut again with a snap as it 
were of disappointment at not catching me. 

This rehearsal of "much ado about nothing" 
being well over, your wanderer next found himself 
stumbling along a sort of out of door market, over 
all sorts of odds and ends, old iron, tin ware, wooden 
ware, earthen ware, old clothes, rags, straps, and 
buckles, as if all the garrets in the world were emp- 
tied there and their contents assorted and arranged 
for sale, under the superintendence of sharp women, 



EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 115 

seated on high stools, all wrapped in shawls and knit- 
ting with big wooden needles as if for dear life, with 
the thermometer all the while nearly down to zero. 
And the way they accosted me with " My pretty gen- 
tleman," " My darling prince, what will you buy ? " 
" Bless your handsome face, are you in want of a 
tea-kettle to day ? " etc, was certainly a caution to 
a timid gentleman, and a lesson in German affec- 
tionate epithets that it would take a dictionary some 
time to teach you. I swallowed more sugar-coated 
German in a half hour than I could digest in a 
week. 



116 MR. DUNN BROWNE'S 



CHAPTER XXVIII. 

VIENNA, THE MAGNIFICENT. 

Vienna, beautiful, gay, lively, rich, aristocratic 
Vienna : the streets thronged with liveried carriages 
and magnificent horses driven at a furious rate, to 
the imminent peril of all foot-passengers: a gor- 
geously dressed, fur-mantled porter with a long gilt 
wand, standing proudly at each nobleman's door: 
warlike Vienna, with armed soldiers confronting 
you at every turn, and every great building a casern 
(barracks) which isn't a palace ; pious Vienna, 
where people go to church at all hours of the day, 
men, women, and children: suspicious Vienna, where 
every thing you say and do is watched, and your let- 
ters broken open, (much good may this do them,) 
where you cannot change your hotel without going 
to the police for permission : paper-money Vienna, 
where you pay for a cup of coffee with two or three 
bank-notes of eight cents each, and don't see a bit of 
specie (save copper) once a week : cold, frosty Vi- 



EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 117 

enna, where you buy frozen apples at the markets, 
and the manners of the people are as cold as their 
noses exposed to the icy air of the Danube : Vienna, 
(a great many more adjectives might be applied but 
time fails,) is a truly imperial city, full of imposing 
buildings and interesting places to visit, and yet 
somehow I like it less than any great city I have vis- 
ited. There isn't anything homely, good-natured, 
and jolly here, but all is proud, grand, ceremonious, 
stiff, and splendid. Have visited one or two picture- 
galleries, twenty or thirty churches, a great many 
cabinets of natural history, a few palaces, and, most 
interesting of all, the imperial stables, where six hun- 
dred noble steeds are lodged most royally and fare 
sumptuously every day, dutifully attended by three 
hundred two-legged servants. The apartments of 
their Equine Highnesses are at once splendid and 
comfortable, free from the scent of the stable and 
clean as a lady's parlor. Their blankets are em- 
broidered with the imperial crest, their harnesses, 
saddles, and all their equipments, are of the most 
costly kind, and generally in excellent taste. In one 
large hall are some two hundred carriages, of which 
the cheapest cost two or three thousand dollars, and 
the coronation carriage, adorned with paintings by 
Rubens, and covered with diamonds and gold, 



118 ME. DUNN BKOWNE'S 

wheels and all, cost about two hundred and fifty- 
thousand dollars. Another hall, filled with state 
saddles and trappings of various descriptions, is still 
more magnificent. But the animals themselves, un- 
like most occupants of palaces, far outshine all their 
exterior adornments. The bright, fiery, intelligent 
eye, the proudly arching neck, (the horse is the only 
animal whom pride really becomes,) the form of per- 
fect symmetry, the delicate but powerful limbs, the 
grace of every movement, the gentleness and cour- 
tesy with which they receive every little attention 
bestowed upon them, the high-bred nobleness and 
dignity of their whole deportment, filled me with ad- 
miration. I would rather have my choice from those 
six hundred horses, than the imperial crown of their 
owner. The carriage horses are all white, but those 
for riding are of all colors, some magnificently black. 
The imperial collections of natural history are not 
remarkable, except the collections of birds and espe- 
cially the mineralogical cabinet, which is gorgeous 
almost beyond description. There are about one thou- 
sand diamonds, some rough, and some cut and set in 
rings, a great bouquet a foot high, all glittering with 
jewels, and bees, bugs and butterflies made of pre- 
cious stones, settling on the flowers of like material. 
There are huge goblets cut from crystal ; necklaces, 



EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 119 

cups, boxes, and all kinds of trinkets, of onyx, agates, 
opals, and emeralds; a glorious rock crystal from Mad- 
agascar, three feet long, weighing one hundred and 
fifty pounds, of almost perfect clearness and purity; 
a splendid collection of petrified woods ; great quan- 
tities of gold and silver and platina, some lumps of 
eight, ten, twenty, and even sixty pounds weight ; all 
sorts of ores, metals, meteorites, fossils, etc., etc. 

I won't bore you with a description of the pictures 
I have seen, although there are some exceedingly 
good ones in the Lichtenstein palace, nor of the 
churches except to say that they are very numerous 
and costly and in execrably bad taste, all crowded 
with miserable pictures and images, relics and all 
manner of abominations that can unite to spoil 
the simplicity that ought to characterize the house 
of God. Even St. Stephen's, which has, I think, 
the finest tower I have seen, of exquisite propor- 
tions and most curious carving, and whose inte- 
rior is very striking and impressive, has a great re- 
dundancy of ornament, and is disfigured by tinsel 
and gilding. But it is a delightful place to visit in 
the evening for the music, to wander about in the 
dark aisles and corners of the church, and hear the 
solemn tones of the organ reverberating amidst the 
columns and arches. In the Italian church is a eel- 



120 MR. DUNN BROWNE'S 

ebrated copy in Mosaic, of immense size, of " The 
Last Supper," of Leonardo da Vinci, which was 
carried by Napoleon to Paris from a church in Italy, 
retaken by the allies in 1815, and finally brought to 
Vienna; a splendid work of art, for the sight of 
which, as well as of several other interesting things, 
I am indebted to the kindness of an art-loving tailor 
whom I met in the streets, and who, seeing I was a 
stranger, left his business and spent the afternoon in 
visiting places of interest about the city with me. 
May he be appointed tailor to His Royal Imperial 
Catholic Apostolical Highness (that is the right title, 
I believe,) Francis Joseph, and make his fortune. 






EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 121 



CHAPTER XXIX. 

TRIESTE AND VENICE, PROSE AND POETRY. 

From Vienna to Trieste is a long, hard, miserable 
journey, about eighty miles of it by post, through a 
desolate chaos of a country, apparently made up of 
the odds and ends that were left at the creation, 
pitched in together in one grand jumble of rocks, 
mountains, chasms, and precipices. The inhabitants 
speak German, ever pronouncing it rougher and 
harder, however, this side Vienna, so that at last 1 
was obliged to remain silent half a day, because I 
can only speak broken German, and this was so hard 
it wouldn't break. Towards Trieste the people in 
the miserable villages we passed through don't seem 
to speak any thing in particular, but communicate 
with each other mostly by signs, assisted a little by 
a Sclavonic dialect composed of equal parts of Rus- 
sian, German, and Italian, with a slight sprinkling of 
very bad Latin. From this barren desert of a coun- 
try we emerged at last on the verge of some tremen- 



122 mr. dunn browne's 

dous cliffs where we had a fine view of — the thick 
fog which covered the Adriatic, and then zigzagged 
down the mountain some fifteen hundred feet into 
the dirty, bustling town of Triest^, which is squeezed 
in between the sea and the cliffs, and has suffered 
considerably in the process. There being absolutely 
nothing to see here, proceeded to see when I could 
get out of it by calling at the office of the Lloyd 
steamship company. 

Finding there were three days to spare before 
the steamer for Egypt left, I started at once for Ven- 
ice and have spent that little morsel of time in the 
most poetical of cities ; have made the tour of the 
grand canal in a gondola, (and been shockingly 
cheated by a gondolier,) have stood on the Rialto and 
the Bridge of Sighs, explored the dungeons of the 
palace of the Doges, have walked in the most lovely of 
all places, the Place St. Mark, by daylight, by gas- 
light, and by moonlight ; and have seen as much of 
the romantic city of Lagunes as could well be seen 
in the time I believe, at least I was as tired when I 
came back on board the steamer for Trieste as I ever 
was after a week's hard labor in my father's hay-field. 

The most striking thing about the city is of 
course the canals and the utter absence of horses 
and vehicles in the streets, which are usually only 



EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 123 

little alleys about three feet wide, with occasion- 
ally a bit of a square in front of a church. The 
churches are very magnificent and full of the monu- 
ments of distinguished Doges and other remarkable 
individuals of whom I never heard. The church of 
St. Mark is by far the most interesting of them all, 
covered with mosaic outside and in, above and below. 
The floor is very curious, with all manner of quaint 
figures and of all possible colors, and sunk in many 
places so that it presents a succession of hill and 
dale to your footsteps. The walls have the quaint- 
est mosaic pictures and queer inscriptions and 
strange carved figures and old gilding, and there are 
so many domes, and every thing is so totally different 
from any other church that was ever built, and so 
rich in a sort of old-fashioned, faded way, and has 
such an Oriental, Arabian Nights kind of look, that 
you can't really believe in it even while you are 
standing therein. So it is with all Venice. I can 
hardly make up my mind whether it is a dream or a 
waking reality ; whether I have really seen the 
winged lion of St. Mark and the four celebrated 
bronze horses, and climbed the high bell tower for 
a morning look at the Queen of the Seas, or it is 
only a vision ; if the latter, then somebody has 
stolen ten or a dozen dollars out of my meagre and 



124 mr. dunn Browne's 

fast collapsing purse, that is all. And I find in my 
memorandum-book also a veritable cobweb which I 
have a pretty distinct recollection of gathering in the 
deepest under-water dungeon of the Ducal Palace. 

Of the paintings of Venice, I only saw one gal- 
lery, and there is one picture worth all the rest a 
hundred times told, Titian's " Assumption," almost 
equal to Raphael's Madonna at Dresden, and with 
more character and expression in the countenance, 
I think, than in the sweet, girlish face of Murillo's 
" Assumption " in the Louvre at Paris. 

And now at last I am actually on board the 
steamer bound for Alexandria, and have glided past 
many beautiful mountainous islands in the Adriatic 
and Mediterranean, and have stopped a few hours at 
Corfu, green, beautiful, strong, fortified Corfu, and 
have eaten freshly plucked oranges, and to-morrow 
will actually be in Egypt, and see Pompey's Pillar, 
and Cleopatra's Needle ; unless another storm burst 
upon us, for we have had a storm ; a dreadful, wild, 
raging storm on a dangerous coast ; a sudden, ter- 
rific white squall that nearly carried us into eternity 
at the first crash ; a hard, persevering, tenacious 
storm that has thumped and pounded our strong, 
brave old ship for a day and two nights with heavy 
leaden blows, and has knocked into a thousand 



EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 125 

pieces and carried away two of our boats and some 
of the upper works of the ship ; a storm such as I 
have always had a secret longing to see, but am per- 
fectly satisfied with once 'beholding ; not a poetical 
storm where the waves rolled mountain-high and all 
that nonsense, but an actual storm where two strong 
winds met and struggled for the mastery, and the 
poor ship trembled and groaned between them, 
where the waves were not very high but fierce and 
dreadfully angry and dashed against us and over us 
with earnest, fearful malignity, with " malice pre- 
pense ; " but our Father in Heaven hath preserved 
us, and in a measure calmed the waves, and we 
have every prospect of reaching Alexandria in safety 
to-morrow. 



126 mr. dunn browne's 



CHAPTER XXX. 

SUMMIT OF THE CHEOPS PYRAMID. 

Rather poetical is n't it, this inditing an epistle, 
sitting on the highest stone of the greatest and old- 
est pyramid, with the green valley of the Nile before 
me and an infinite sea of desert all around ; with the 
Sphynx a little speck at my feet, and the mummies 
of half a dozen ancient cities in sight, or rather just 
sinking out of sight into the remorseless sand that is 
drifting upon them ; sitting upon the crumbling old 
pyramid, which the jaws of Time himself have found 
too tough a morsel to crush, and must be content 
with gnawing off crumbs from its surface, and 
smoothing its sides down into a sleek mountain 
which posterity shall forget to have been the work of 
men's hands ; perched on the crown of the ragged, 
dilapidated old giant, whose smooth granite coat 
has been stripped off his shoulders to adorn the up- 
start Cairo, an infant of a thousand years or so on 
the other side of the Nile. Rather romantic, writing 



EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 127 

you from the top of the Cheops, amidst a picturesque 
group of Bedouins, Englishmen, and Yankees, who 
are noisily engaged in all the different occupations 
that can possibly be carried on in such circumstan- 
ces ; talking poetry, discussing the sites of lost cities, 
cracking jokes at the expense of the respectable old 
Egyptians who piled up the pyramids, selling 
and buying various rather dubiously authenticated 
antiquities, paying sundry shillings to see an Arab 
go up and down the second pyramid in ten min- 
utes, drinking Nile water and champagne, laughing, 
lunching, and dealing in relics, a foot of a mummy per- 
haps ill one hand and a leg of a turkey in the other. 
Rather a case of the pursuit of literature under 
difficulties, is n't it, this writing when one's hand is 
a little shaky with the fatigue of climbing a couple 
of hundred three feet steps without any help, with a 
little quill two inches long, paper spread out on a 
stone, and a Bedouin boy holding the inkstand, (a 
German pocket inkhorn which unscrews in half a 
dozen places and is as complicated as a Yankee pa- 
tent rat-trap) ; but I promised to date you an epistle 
from the pyramids, and my promise is fulfilled, even 
though I stop here and partake of the cold fowl 
which my companion offers me, leaving the re- 
mainder of the sheet to be filled in Cairo 



128 MR. DUNN BROWNE'S 

And so at last one part of my pilgrimage is ended. 
I have seen the great monuments of Egypt from 
afar and near at hand; have walked around them, 
gathered a handful of sand at their feet, climbed to 
their summit and crawled into their heart, surveyed 
their desolations, felt their grandeur, been disap- 
pointed at their shabbiness, sympathized with their 
loneliness, picked up stones that have rested against 
the bosom of the Sphynx, descended into the old, 
broken tombs, and transported myself in a granite 
sarcophagus three thousand years up the stream 
of time. The emotion of beauty is inspired only at 
a distance, that of sublimity only close at hand, but 
the feeling of sadness and desolation everywhere in 
their vicinity. The desert is their appropriate place ; 
the mutilated Sphynx, the ruined causeways, the de- 
serted tombs, the broken fragments of marble and 
granite, the half obliterated inscriptions, and the de- 
caying pyramids themselves, are all in perfect har- 
mony, harmoniously mournful; one grand Necropolis, 
and worse than that a deserted burial-place, so 
gloomy that even its dead inhabitants have aban- 
doned it, and the last trumpet itself shall stir into 
life no dust in those tenantless tombs. 

I was disappointed to find the stone of the pyra- 
mids of so poor a quality and the courses so irregular. 



EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 129 

Even the hundred feet of facing that remains at the 
apex of the second in size is crumbling away, and 
has so many crevices that the ascent is by no means 
difficult, though the descent in one or two places 
where the crevices are four or five feet apart, is 
so slippery an operation that some of his friends 
watched with a little anxiety Mr. Browne's down- 
ward progress, and expected to pick him up in sev- 
eral pieces on the plain below. 

The accommodations in the interior of the great 
pyramid are much more limited than a survey of its 
exterior would naturally lead one to imagine, consist- 
ing of a very small cellar one hundred and fifty feet 
deep, a diminutive drawing-room on the first floor,, 
and a .tolerable bedchamber in the second story, 
with two or three miserable attics, and the arrange- 
ments for ventilation are so poor that a fat English- 
man in our company fainted and had to be carried 
out. My experience would not lead me to recom- 
mend it as a residence for any great length of time, 
though I believe the builder intended to take up his> 
permanent abode therein. 

The greatest nuisance of the visit to Ghizeeh is 
the swarm of dirty, half-naked Arabs, who faster^ 
themselves upon you, and cannot be shaken off, not 
even by the payment of money, for they build up their- 

9 



130 mr. dunn browne's 

demands upon you on the model of the pyramids 
themselves, first laying down a large sum for a foun- 
dation, and then when you have paid that, superad- 
ding another not quite so large, and another, and 
another, like the different courses of stone, decreas- 
ing as they go up, till at last you get out of all 
patience, and knock off their apex with the biggest 
club you can lay hands on. Be careful to hit them 
on the head, however, or you may do them some se- 
rious injury. Yours, out of the land of Egypt. 



• 



EXPERIENCES IN EOREIGN PARTS. 131 



CHAPTER XXXI. 

INTRODUCES YOU TO SUNDRY INTERESTING PEOPLE. 

Would you like to call upon me at my lodgings 
in Cairo ? Ah, well, I can easily direct you. After 
you come, by a rather complicated route, to the 
Italian Bazaar, turn up a narrow lane to the left, 
(not the one by the old shoemaker's with a long 
pipe in his mouth, but further on at the corner 
where the young woman sells oranges sitting on 
the ground with a baby in her lap,) then take the 
right along a ruined wall and some ragged beggars, 
and bear to the left again through a low, arched 
gateway, down a street lined with donkey-boys, till 
you come to a small door on which a torn theatre- 
bill is pasted, which door you enter, pass under the 
house, through the stable in the rear, out into another 
street about three feet wide, where you will probably 
meet a long train of camels laden with stones and 
with dripping water-skins, take the second turning 
to the left round the decayed mosk painted in red 



132 mr. dunn Browne's 

and white horizontal stripes, and then, as the way- 
becomes now rather difficult to find, you had better 
go back to the street of donkey-boys above men- 
tioned, and engage one of them, (the little fellow 
with one eye and a remarkably wicked-looking 
crop-eared donkey knows where " Milord Browne" 
lives,) and ride the remaining distance. 

We are in a very aristocratic part of the city, 
in the vicinity of several legations and consulates, 
near several eminent bankers, etc., and like our 
quarters very much, both myself and the recently 
arrived — Oh, I am afraid I haven't mentioned yet, 
the arrival of a party of old college friends, pale- 
faced devotees of the Muses, you know, who have 
burned down their lamp of existence, in midnight 
studies, to about the last flicker, and come out here 
to get rilled and trimmed again ; men who have 
climbed to the very summit of the Hill of Science, 
and are now come down on the other side to rest 
a little; who have disentangled themselves from 
Greek roots, and the horns of logical dilemmas, 
and metaphysical paradoxes, to come out and take 
a look at the pyramids and get acquainted with the 
sphynx and make a cruise on " the ship of the 
desert." Ah, well, it was better than a circus to see 
them ride in on donkeys, night before last, at the 



EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 133 

north-western gate of the city, surrounded by a halo 
of dusky Arabs bearing their portmanteaus, shawls, 
and mackintoshes. You see I was just starting out, 
after my custom, to take a little evening air and a 
bit of Egyptian sunset, with a couple of pyramids 
in it, and was meditating as I walked along, upon 
the advisability of setting off alone for Joppa and 
Jericho, or of waiting here a little longer, on the 
remote possibility that my friends might have health 
enough to reach these distant shores and accompany 
me on my pilgrimage, when my thoughts were 
interrupted by an approaching tumult, and there 
quickly appeared, emerging from a cloud of dust and 
donkey-drivers, a round, rosy, aldermanic individual, 
ambling along on an aged gray donkey, who seemed 
to me so much like an enlarged and improved 
edition of my young friend " Dick — — ," that he 
was seized and greeted under that familiar appella- 
tion in less time than I could describe the additional 
twenty pounds of him that I had never seen before. 
And the rest of that imposing cavalcade, as they 
successively came up, were attacked in a similar 
manner and robbed — of a good deal of anxiety 
which they professed to have felt at not finding me 
in Alexandria. Let us see, first there was " George, 
the Magnificent" he of tall stature and stately mien, 



134 mk. dunn Browne's 

with beard and moustache black as jet, sitting in 
upright dignity on the smallest of donkey-kind, 
obliged to lift up his feet considerably lest his steed 
should go out from under him. Next, vigorously 
belaboring with an umbrella the most refractory of 
asinine species, preceded by a pair of gold spectacles 
and a formidable moustache, looking the very personi- 
fication of health, came the " Professor" (whose 
modesty prevents my designating him any more 
particularly,) who a year ago was nothing but an 
untied bundle of unstrung nerves, but now can bear 
any amount of fatigue, does n't know the meaning 
of the word " nerve " except by tracing it out etymo- 
logically, and will explore more ruins and catacombs 
and such antique trumpery in a day than any person 
I know of, unless it be perhaps — well I am a mod- 
est individual and will pass on to the next topic, 
which is one of no less importance than our " Wil- 
liam the Conqueror" who approaches, guiding with 
unequalled skill his . prancing steed, in all the glory 
of an oriental beard reaching wellnigh to his girdle, 
a regular Arab shekh in grace and solemnity of 
bearing, distinguished for a certain wild, poetical 
enthusiasm of character and an utter contempt and 
disregard of every thing of a pecuniary or business 
nature, all which therefore devolves upon his intimate 



EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 135 

friend, the practical " Isham" (good old Scripture 
name you see,) who rides up next on a very demure 
donkey, " Isham, the Blond" as we • usually call him, 
on account of a peculiar delicacy of complexion. He 
is our main reliance in all matters of business, but 
of singular obtuseness in reference to every thing 
of a jocular nature, so that his friends delight to 
perpetrate puns in his presence, in order to watch the 
workings of his countenance as he vainly endeavors 
to find out what they are all laughing at. And 
here is at last our glorious " Ned" who, if good 
looks were a capital offence, could n't disguise him- 
self so as to escape hanging six months, unless the 
executioners were perhaps women, in which case 
they never could find it in their hearts to choke 
him, in that way at least. Last of all appears our 
Nimrod, our Jehu, our lion-slayer, our horse-tamer, 
" W. H. P., the Impetuous" a Curtius, ready for any 
gulf you can open before him, (he will leap over it, 
not into it though,) a Richard the Third, ready to 
give his kingdom for a horse, who can ride any 
thing quadrupedal from a kicking donkey like that 
he is now cudgelling, up to a wild elephant. He is 
otherwise remarkable as an early riser and also for 
an intense determination never to be " humbugged." 
So now you are introduced to the whole company. 
May the acquaintance be a pleasant one. 



136 mr. dunn browne's 



CHAPTER XXXII. 

A VOICE FROM THE TOMBS. 

Being unanimously elected dragoman of the 
newly-arrived party, I of course, proceeded at once 
to arrange an excursion to the pyramids, although I 
had already once made the trip. Wishing to make 
thorough work and visit every thing of interest in 
the vicinity, we determined to take provisions for 
two days and sleep in a tomb at Sakkara. Mounted 
our donkeys at an early hour, and, taking an extra 
one for baggage, accomplished our journey to Ghi- 
zeeh with great success, keeping the Bedouins at a 
tolerable distance ; pushed on to Sakkara in the 
afternoon, taking a half dozen ruined pyramids on 
the w T ay. On our arrival at nightfall, inquired of our 
guide for some tombs, in order to make our selection 
for lodgings, and were told by him in the most posi- 
tive manner that there were no tombs at all in that 
vicinity, and we must put up for the night in the 
Arab village about a mile distant. Disbelieved him, 



EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN' PARTS. 137 

r 

of course, which is the only way in which you can 
get any good from an Arab guide, and scattered in 
all directions in the search, determined not to be 
cheated out of the romance of a tomb-hotel. As it 
was getting dark and the whole region is full of deep 
pits (out of which several millions of ancient Egyp- 
tians have recently been dug), this search for a tomb 
was quite likely to be successful in a way different 
from what we intended, but at last the Professor, 
who is a capital guide among pits and snares and 
temptations of all sorts, hailed to inform us of his suc- 
cess. Dismissed our donkeys and guide, shouldered 
the blankets and provisions and before the total 
Egyptian darkness was quite upon us, had all 
reached the quarters indicated, which were a rocky 
cliff all perforated with hewn sepulchres, with hiero- 
glyphics over the entrance, representing men mowing 
and reaping, and various jars and baskets filled with 
bread and fruits, which we very naturally interpreted, 
" Good entertainment for man and beast," and ac- 
cordingly invited ourselves in and took such apart- 
ments as suited our tastes. For our dining-room we 
chose a vaulted chamber, curiously .painted and 
adorned with bas-reliefs of various agricultural oper- 
ations, fishes, fruits, birds, and flowers; for bedcham- 
bers, those which had figures of men and women 



138 MR. DUNN BROWNE'S 

combi ng their hair and performing different opera- 
tions of the toilet. We were soon visited by some 
Bedouins who brought us a jar of water, whereupon 
we brought out our chickens, etc., and made a hearty 
meal, then explored a quarter of a mile of tombs by 
candlelight and retired to rest. 

Slept rather comfortably, though before morning 
found the tomb somewhat cold, but that I think is a 
quality usually ascribed to tombs, and therefore no 
more than was to have been expected. The " boys " 
amused themselves in the morning by shooting at 
the skull of an ancient Egyptian, at three rods dis- 
tance, with revolvers, and came near perforating the 
skull of a modern Egyptian, who appeared suddenly 
round a corner, bringing water for our ' breakfast. 
We made a rather successful breakfast and then pro- 
ceeded to visit the Serapseum, which is described in 
none of the guide books and has only been discov- 
ered within two or three years, and which consists of 
a series of subterranean galleries hewn out of the 
rock containing thirty-four enormous sarcophagi of 
red granite, for the reception of the mummied bulls of 
the ancient Egyptians. They are on an average 
about twelve feet long, six feet wide, and seven feet 
high, only one or two of them covered with inscrip- 
tions, but all polished externally and internally, and 



EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 139 

each hewn from a single block. The walls are four- 
teen inches thick, and the cover or lid to each, from 
fourteen to thirty inches thick, one entirely removed 
and the others slipped back two or three feet, to allow 
the removal of the bull. They are all now empty and 
were found in their present condition, or with only 
fragments of mummies in them, by the Frenchman 
who has superintended the excavations. How these 
immense sarcophagi ever came into their present po- 
sition, down under the earth in narrow galleries hewn 
out of the rock, is a mystery I am unable to solve, 
and this whole subterranean bull-cemetery impresses 
one with as strange ideas of the old Egyptians as per- 
haps the pyramids themselves. And then there are 
the sepulchres of the Ibis mummies, where hundreds 
of thousands of those sacred birds were carefully pre- 
served enbalmed, wrapped in cloths and packed in 
earthen jars. The crocodile mummy pits are further 
up the Nile, and we did n't see them. But while they 
took so much pains to save the carcasses of beasts 
and birds and reptiles, the bodies of men, at least the 
common people, were tumbled in together, into great 
pits a hundred feet deep, multitudes of which have 
lately been opened at Sakkara, and the whole earth 
is covered with the bones and skulls, which latter are 
of wonderful thickness, though tolerably well-shaped. 



140 mk. dunn browne's 

Wonder if, some thousands of years hence, anybody 
will be kicking our skulls about and commenting 
upon their thickness ! 

We next visited the site of Memphis, of whose 
ruins nothing now remains except a few broken col- 
umns and mutilated statues, and especially one gigan- 
tic granite king who lies with his face in the mud, 
and if the water rises six inches higher will certainly be 
stifled. This colossus, if he ever had any legs, (which 
he has not at present,) must have been fifty or sixty 
feet high, is very well proportioned, and has a fine 
face, wearing a benevolent smile, which to be sure 
loses something of its effect in the mud puddle, but 
nevertheless shows a spirit not to be ruffled even in 
the most adverse circumstances. Having paid our 
respects to his majesty and offered him our condo- 
lence upon his fallen condition, we resumed our don- 
keys and took up our march for Cairo, prepared to 
appreciate the advantages of a habitation built for 
living men, (even though it must be occupied jointly 
with the fleas and musquitoes,) after a night in the 
tombs of Sakkara. Ever yours, alike among the liv- 
ing and in the abodes of the dead. 



EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 141 



) 



CHAPTER XXXIII. 

CAIRO, THE PICTURESQUE. 

The ten plagues of Egypt, or at least of Cairo, at 
present are — Donkey-boys, who surround you the 
moment you set foot in the street, .and block up your 
path till you have cleared the way with a cane : 
Dragomen, who beset you in every passage of your 
hotel, and* throng into your room to bore you with 
big pocketbooks full of recommendations, and who 
are ready to take you up the Nile, over the desert to 
Jerusalem, Ethiopia, or China, at a pound sterling a 
day and find you in provisions : Musquitoes, who 
defy nets and curtains and puncture you at all hours 
of the day and night: Fleas, in countless numbers 
and of unmitigated ferocity, who never leave you an 
instant's peace, who crawl up your pantaloons and 
down your neck, and take delight in biting you in 
aggravating places where you can't possibly get at 
them : Cocks, who crow at all hours of the night in 
the shrillest of tones : wild, masterless, wolfy Dogs, 



142 mr. dunn browne's 

who bark always and bite whenever they dare: Flies, 
which completely cover face and eyes of the little 
Arab babies, and carry ophthalmia from one to 
another: Dust, which double and triple windows 
cannot keep out of your bedroom, and no amount of 
green veils or spectacles keep out of your eyes : 
Darkness, unrelieved by the glimmer of a single 
street lamp, and which of necessity confines you to 
your lodgings after six o'clock in the evening : and 
" Backsheesh," which rings in your ears and empties 
your pockets, wherever you go and wherever you stay, 
when you rise up and when you sit down, when you 
go out and when you come in, a perpetual, universal, 
unavoidable nuisance. Barring these and a few 
other little inconveniences that I haven't time to men- 
tion, Cairo is a truly delightful residence. The city 
is much larger than I expected to find it ; seems of 
ample size for half a million inhabitants, though 
many of its buildings are in a ruinous state, and 1 
think the usual estimate of population is from two 
to three hundred thousand. Two or three of the 
streets are wide enough for a narrow carriage to pass 
through, but the usual width will just allow me and 
a donkey (or two donkeys as the case may be,) to 
meet without interference. The houses project as in 
German cities, and the upper windows are within 



EXPERIENCES IN EOREIGN PAETS. 143 

" short kissing distance," as one of the younger mem- 
bers of our party, (who is familiarly addressed by his 
friends as " Dick,") remarked to me yesterday, and I 
consider him good authority in this instance, for I 
saw a pair of black eyes peeping through the lat- 
tice opposite his room the other day. Speaking of 
lattices, they are one of the most striking and pecul- 
iar features of an Egyptian house, most fancifully 
carved and of every variety of pattern. 

We prosecute our researches through the crooked 
bazaars and streets of the city in the asinine method, 
that is, mounted on donkeys, which is a pleasant 
enough kind of proceeding when the beast does n't 
stumble and pitch you over his head into a mud pud- 
dle. The mosks of Cairo are nearly all old, unre- 
paired, and falling to pieces, though the so called 
" New Mosk," built by Mohammed Ali in the cita- 
del, is very splendid, entirely lined with beautiful 
alabaster, with an admirable dome and painted win- 
dows and a fine court paved with marble. The 
Mosk Hassan, also, which was built from the out- 
side coating of the pyramids, is of vast size, and has 
four magnificent arches of fifty or sixty feet span ; 
but in general the mosks are interesting rather as 
ruins of past glory than as existing living buildings. 

The view from the citadel (on a lofty eminence at 



144 MR. DUNN BROWNE'S 

the back of the city,) is the most striking landscape 
I have seen. The two mountainous, treeless deserts 
parted asunder by the green valley of the Nile ; the 
groops of pyramids in the distance, the ruins of 
mosks, palaces, and tombs all around the city ; the 
groves oT palms and acacias to the west and north, 
through which here and there gleam the white walls 
of a country residence ; and the city itself, with its 
hundreds of graceful minarets, its palaces and gar- 
dens, narrow streets, flat roofs, and ornamented 
domes, its old battlemented wall with picturesque 
towers, its winding canal whose course is marked 
with verdure and occasional palm trees ; its mud liuts 
side by side with lofty edifices of stone : such another 
view I don't believe exists in the world, desolation 
and cultivation, barrenness and fertility, splendor and 
squalor, mud, marble, and wood, ancient and mod- 
ern; broken and whole, barbarous, civilized, and Turk- 
ish ; it is inimitable and indescribable and unimag- 
inable, and I only wish you were here to take don- 
keys and ride up with me to see it for yourselves, 
and save me the trouble of writing about it. 

The Arabs are a very picturesque and decidedly 
dirty race. Their dress is graceful and elegant — 
sometimes, but to dress in the common Arab cos- 
tume, one need only get into an old, torn night-shirt 



EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 145 

and tie a handkerchief about his head, and even two 
of these articles may be dispensed with without be- 
ing greatly out of fashion. The women (like the 
ostriches we read of who put their heads into a bush 
and think themselves entirely safe) take a little 
pains, most of them, to cover their faces, but no great 
care as to any other part of the person. 

The houses are miserable mud huts, and the peo- 
ple are so filthy that I have been astonished to find 
the dogs, sheep, goats, and donkeys willing to oc- 
cupy as joint- tenants with those who are so much 
more degraded in the scale of being than them- 
selves. 

10 



146 MR. DUNN BROWNE'S 



CHAPTER XXXIV. 

JOHN BULL SEES MORE THAN HE BARGAINED FOR. 

February 5th. — A queer little incident of travel 
happened hereabouts last week. The steamer which 
has just made a voyage up the Nile stopped at Sak- 
kara on her return, to permit the passengers to go 
out and see the pyramids, Serapseum, Ibis pits, etc. 
An Englishman belonging to the party unfortunately 
became entangled in the passages of a pyramid and 
couldn't get out. His companions by and by miss- 
ing him, searched the whole region about an hour 
and a half and finally concluded he had preceded 
them in the return to their steamer, and went away 
without him. The poor fellow at last, half dead 
with the fright and the bad air combined, succeeded 
in getting out into daylight, what little there was 
left of it, for it was almost night, and by signs signi- 
fied to some Bedouins, whom he discovered, his 
wish to be taken to the river, which they complied 
with, first relieving him of most of his superfluous 



EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 147 

cash. But they ignorantly or wilfully conducted him 
too far up the river, and found no steamer, so carried 
him back again three or four miles to the pyramids, 
and were for detaining him till further advices. Dur- 
ing the night, however, he effected his escape, found 
his way on foot, over canals and ditches, through 
palm groves, grain fields, and sugar cane patches to 
the Nile, cut loose a boat and floated down stream 
to Cairo. But his troubles were by no means over 
yet. Scarcely had he landed when the city guards 
seized him as a marauder and thief, and, not being 
able to understand his explanation, pricked him 
about with their bayonets from one guard-house to 
another, in search of some one who could talk with 
him, but not succeeding, thrust him at length with 
much abuse into a dark, filthy, flea-y prison, and it 
was only on the next afternoon that he found him- 
self free, having had nothing to eat for twenty -four 
hours, but being himself eaten all that time by ver- 
min, his clothes torn and covered with mud, his 
whole appearance more that of a dilapidated dust- 
man than a trim, spruce, neatly shaved, English 
traveller. I think that man will retain some vivid 
recollections of his Egyptian experiences, and as an 
Englishman always values a thing by what it costs 
him, doubtless that Cairo cell will ever remain very 
dear to his memory. 



148 MR. DUNN BROWNE'S 

A friend related the above to me as we were re- 
clining on a divan smoking chibouks and drinking 
coffee with the howling dervishes, and therefore, al- 
though you may not see the particular connection be- 
tween the two subjects, I shall proceed to give you 
a short account of the proceedings of that fraternity 
on the afternoon of last Friday, which, as everybody 
knows, I need not say, is the Mohammedan Sabbath. 
After partaking of the above-mentioned refreshments, 
we all adjourned to the mosk connected with the es- 
tablishment, leaving our slippers and boots at the 
entrance. The head dervish, after one or two pros- 
trations, seated himself in a little niche, which is al- 
ways found on the Mecca side of a mosk, cross-leg- 
ged, on a beautifully embroidered mat, and the 
brethren (about thirty in number) arranged them- 
selves in a semicircle, on sheep skins, in front of 
their leader, each having bowed reverently before 
him and kissed his hand, taking pains also to retire 
backwards to his own place. Then with a few pre- 
liminary ejaculations they began to repeat a formula 
which, as near as I could find out, was, " There is 
no other God but Allah," at first in a quiet and sol- 
emn voice, afterwards in a more rapid and excited 
manner, waving their bodies to and fro. After con- 
tinuing this a wearisome while, (my friend said a 



EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 149 

thousand and one times,) they were silent a few 
minutes, the motions continuing however, then be- 
gan anew with the repetition of the single word 
" Allah," bowing their heads in concert, ever lower 
and lower, getting constantly more and more excited. 
At last they all rose simultaneously, kicked away 
the sheep skins, took off their outer garment and 
their high red cap, leaving their long hair to flow at 
random over their shoulders, and commenced a sin- 
gular and most doleful groaning which is still ring- 
ing in my ears, but is not enough like any other 
known sound for me to describe, at the same time 
bowing their bodies till the dishevelled hair swept the 
floor in front of them and nearly touched it behind, 
ever faster and more furious, one of the shrillest 
voices from time to time throwing in an unearthly 
yell, and the whole scene getting more maniacal, not 
to say diabolical, every instant. 

Now glide into the circle, one, two, three, four 
pale-faced boys and young men, clad in a long 
purple or gray or white mantle, with a hoop at the 
bottom, and commence whirling with ever increas- 
ing velocity and wonderful endurance, (I counted 
over a thousand evolutions of one little fellow not 
more than ten years old, and didn't begin till he 
had been going some time). Various musical 



150 mr. dunn browne's 

instruments also strike up, drums, fifes, flageolets, 
and cymbals, and introduce a new element into 
the mass of discordant sound, yet serving to give 
it a sort of harmony and cadence. And so the 
thing goes on an hour and a half, two hours, I 
don't know but three hours, one of the leaders 
going round inside the circle to encourage and 
direct their movements, the whirlers occasionally 
relieving one another, the voices of the howlers 
growing hoarser, and the perspiration streaming 
from their foreheads, things verging towards a crisis, 
and the thing ends rather unceremoniously, brings 
up with a sort of a jerk, all stopping at once, save 
one poor fellow who don't seem to have any brakes 
to put on, and continues bobbing up and down till 
he falls in a fit, which is considered as the highest 
attainable state of devotion, and peculiarly accept* 
able to God. The rest, embracing their leader and 
each other all round, resume their garments and ad- 
journ to another cup of coffee and chibouk, and we 
retire to our hotel. Such is the choicest worship of 
the most holy of the Mussulmen. 



EXPERIENCES IN EOREIGN PARTS. 151 



CHAPTER XXXV. 

ALEXANDRIA TO JERUSALEM. 

My dear Reader, — Did you ever wait a week 
in the stupid Egyptian town of Alexandria for a 
miserable French steamer, which was behind her 
time, and then when at last she did appear, find 
the machinery out of order and be obliged to stop 
a few days more in a hotel where you are bitten by 
alternate swarms of mosquitoes and fleas, besides 
being bled by the landlord to the tune of three 
dollars a day and no "roast beef?" If so you can 
perhaps appreciate the feelings of our party when 
we went on board and found ourselves " out of the 
frying-pan into the fire," alternating between a dirty, 
dark, ill-flavored, flea-y cabin and a sooty deck cum- 
bered with a crowd of ill-flavored and ill-favored 
Arabs and negroes covered with fleas, and not half 
covered with any thing else. Travelling in the East 
should be most carefully eschewed by every thin- 
skinned individual who is endowed with the sense 



152 mr. dunn Browne's 

of smell. These were the only circumstances in 
which I ever really longed for a severe attack of 
sea-sickness as the least of two evils. But alas! 
that happy relief was denied me, and I continued 
miserably well the whole two days of our trip to 
Jaffa. 

This little doll of a city sits up very erect on a 
bit of a promontory, and really presents quite a 
bold front to the boisterous old Mediterranean, who 
dashes his impudent waves over her walls, and will 
not allow the steamers to land their passengers more 
than two times out of three. Our star was in the 
ascendant, however, and we all reached the shore in 
safety, including one or two Jerusalem passengers 
who had been vibrating several passages between 
Beyrout and Alexandria. But we found several 
poor fellows on shore who had been waiting three 
weeks in Joppa in no very amiable frame of mind, 
and then again the steamer that came the week after 
ours, by way of a pleasant variety, just landed her 
passengers, but, the wind rising suddenly, carried all 
their baggage on to Beyrout. 

After paying our respects to the United States 
consul, who can't speak a word of English but 
is a capital consul notwithstanding, and to the 
American missionaries, who received us with great 



EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 153 

kindness and hospitality, we made our preparations 
to depart at one, P. M., for Jerusalem, thirty-five miles 
distant. And now came our first experience of 
genuine Oriental travelling, for in Egypt we had 
found all the comforts of an excellent railway, had 
been borne on the wings of steam up within sight 
of the pyramids, for all the world as if we were 
travelling in Yankee land except that we felt our- 
selves much safer. But here we engaged a Drag- 
oman, who interpreted between us and our consul, 
who sent his Janizary, w T ho brought us a venerable, 
gray-haired muleteer, who assembled before our door 
an assortment of rusty horses, spiteful mules, and 
ragged donkeys, from which we selected the best- 
looking, (except your humble servant who acted on 
a directly contrary principle and in the end proved 
to be the best mounted of the crowd,) and started 
off at every pace from a limp to a gallop, through 
the beautiful groves of orange and lemon trees, bend- 
ing under their burden of luscious fruit, the peach, 
cherry, almond, and pomegranate in richest fragrance 
of blossom, and the earth all carpeted with the 
sweetest of flowers. A ride of three hours over 
the fertile vale of Sharon brought us to Ramleh, 
where we rested two hours at the house of the 
American consul, who can speak neither English* 



154 ME. DUNN BROWNE'S 

French, German, nor Italian, and therefore our con- 
versation with him was carried on principally by- 
means of pipes and coffee and . a very tolerable sup- 
per of rice and chickens. 

We set out again for Jerusalem at eight, P. M., 
having exchanged with our host a profusion of 
polite speeches, of which neither party understood 
the other's, but which doubtless answered the pur- 
pose just as well. Our path at first led over the 
same lovely plain enamelled .with flowers, (what a 
pity that my "roses of Sharon" all proved, upon a. 
closer inspection, to be poppies!) but after a little, 
as we began to ascend the mountain, came a road 
over which you would rather ride one mile than two. 
Sometimes a smooth, slippery path cut and worn 
deep into the limestone rock ; sometimes a moun- 
tain gully, full of large, round stones, washed clean 
from all soil which could fill up the crevices and 
relieve the steps of the poor horses ; sometimes rude 
stairs cut in the face of the mountain and some- 
times places where none of these things were prac- 
ticable, and our animals must scramble up by their 
own unaided genius without artificial helps, and with 
unerring step those little Syrian steeds bore us 
over places that would give an American horse 
the nightmare to dream about. A lively French 



EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 155 

lady in Jerusalem declared to me that she could ride 
her little gray charger up the side of any six story 
house in Paris or London. Now I wouldn't vouch 
for the strict literal truth of this statement, but it 
wouldn't frighten me much to see her equestrianizing 
on the roof of any house that isn't inclined more 
than forty-five degrees. 

We arrived at the Jaffa gate of the Holy City at 
six o'clock in the morning, and never were poor pil- 
grims more glad to reach their destination, for we had 
scarcely snatched a moment's sleep in the two pre- 
vious nights on that delectable steamer, and would 
have broken our necks the moment we attempted 
such a thing on horseback, amidst the ravines and 
rocks which we passed over and through and around 
and under and up and down, during that long, long 
ten hours ride by moonlight from Ramleh to Jerusa- 
lem. But now our pilgrimage was accomplished. 
Fatigue and desire to sleep were forgotten in the joy 
of entering the gates of Zion. 



156 MR. DUNN BROWNE'S 



CHAPTER XXXVI. 

THE HOLY CITY. 

Our first approach to Jerusalem was in the dead 
silence that precedes the dawn ; in the gray morning 
twilight which makes things look dim and mysteri- 
ous and supernaturally large ; and very stately and 
imposing was our view of the walls, battlements, tow- 
ers, and domes of the old city, as we reached the 
heights on the North-west, and drew near the Jaffa 
gate. But the most beautiful view was when we 
returned from the Jordan, (also in the night,) and 
approached from the East over the Mount of Olives 
at two o'clock in the morning, by a most glorious 
moonlight. I shall never forget that scene. In and 
about Jerusalem are many things that need the sil- 
vering of the moonbeams. Then the rough, craggy 
hills were softened and lighted up with a gentle 
glory. The frightful ravines were filled with fanci- 
ful shadows ; the old rusty domes of the city glis- 
tened in silver; the crumbling towers stood out 



EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 157 

sharp and fresh as of newly cut stone ; all the rough 
places were made smooth ; all deficiencies were cov- 
ered up ; the unsightly transformed into loveliness, 
and what was before beautiful made absolutely glo- 
rious. But seen in the daytime, looked i^pon in a 
matter of fact kind of way, without regard to the 
glorious and sacred associations connected with it, 
(if indeed such a thing be possible,) Jerusalem 
appears much as I had expected. T was sure I had 
seen it often before ; that uneven, irregular, decaying 
old city, mourning over her desolations, sitting soli- 
tary amidst the ruins of her former glory. The hills 
about the city are even more rocky and barren than 
they are described ; the valleys are exceedingly pre- 
cipitous, deep, -abysmal ; and the whole region is 
full of caverns, grottos, tombs, all sorts of natural fis- 
sures, and excavations by the hand of man. The 
valley of the brook Kedron, (which is no brook at all,) 
contains some green spots, about Gethsemane are 
some ancient olive trees, the Mount of Olives has a 
few fruit-trees and is cultivated in spots, the hills to 
the southward toward Bethlehem are green and toler- 
ably fertile, but generally the whole region around is 
one mass of rocks, rough, craggy, terrible rocks, with- 
out a tree or a shrub. 

The town itself, which is supposed to contain 



158 mr. dunn browne's 

nearly twenty thousand inhabitants, is a filthy, 
muddy, Oriental town, full of dogs and vermin, and 
intolerable smells, habitable by decent people only on 
Mt. Zion and near the Ja*ffa gate. The so-called 
sacred places have been described a thousand times, 
and even if they had not been, are not worth the 
trouble, as no one now believes in their genuineness. 
In Gethsemane one feels sure that he is at least near 
the place where our Saviour agonized in the Garden, 
in going up the Mount of Olives we doubtless fol- 
lowed the path so often trodden by the feet of Jesus 
and his disciples, but you are thankful to know that 
Calvary and the Holy Sepulchre could not possibly 
have been where the Greeks and Catholics locate 
them, and quarrel so fiercely about their possession 
that the Turk is obliged to interfere as a peacemaker 
in these Christian brawls. Without speaking then of 
the " Holy Places" about Jerusalem, I will only give 
you a bit of an account of our visit to the mosk 
Omar, the sacred enclosure carefully guarded so 
many centuries against the intrusion of any Christian 
foot, but which of late years has been on several oc- 
casions opened for the admission of parties of Euro- 
peans, usually the train of some prince, and will soon, 
in all probability, become comparatively easy of ac- 
cess to the public. 



EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 159 

Having our consul for Egypt and the brother of 
the United States ambassador at Constantinople 
with us, it seemed a favorable opportunity to intro- 
duce an American party, and finally, after many vex- 
atious delays and excuses, the required firman was 
obtained, allowing us, on the payment of a pound 
sterling each, to see all that is to be seen on the site 
of the old temple. The Dervishes and other fanati- 
cal Moslems, who guard the mosk and amuse them- 
selves by throwing stones at any infidel dogs who 
dare to approach, having been removed and shut up, 
and a guard of thirty soldiers accompanying us,. we 
entered and spent an hour and a half in examining 
the mosks Omar and El Aksa which, with a large 
enclosed space, occupy Mt. Moriah. The Mosk 
Omar, which is generally supposed to stand on the 
site of Solomon's temple, is an octagon with a huge 
dome, covered all over with glazed tiles, painted blue 
and green like China ware, which coating has broken 
and crumbled away in many places, giving a very 
ancient look to the building, which is natural enough, 
for it is twelve hundred years old. There are four 
entrances, and the interior has two concentric circles 
of columns, forming two circular aisles, and a space 
perhaps forty feet in diameter within the inner col- 
umns that support *the dome, which is all occupied 



160 mr. dunn browne's 

with the sacred stone that was suspended in the air 
at Mohammed's command, as it was accompanying 
him on his ascension to heaven. On this rock, the 
Moslems say, was the Holy of Holies of the ancient 
temple, and under it is a chamber excavated in the 
natural rock where are the places of prayer of Mo- 
hammed, Christ, Moses, Elijah, and Solomon. The 
•hole in the top of the rock is shown, through which 
the prophet ascended. The stone remained hanging 
in the air, by his command, without any visible sup- 
port, for many centuries, but at last to relieve the 
fears of the faithful, especially the females, who 
dared not go under it, the present walls and pillars, 
(which really have nothing to do w T ith supporting it,) 
were placed beneath. 

The floor of the mosk is of beautiful marble, and 
the sides are lined with marbles ; the pillars are of 
the Corinthian order, of Porphyry and Verd Antique. 
There are several beautiful painted windows in the 
dome, and some rich mosaics and gilding. The 
Mosk El Aksa has the form of a cross like a church, 
as indeed it was, is of vast size, but not especially 
beautiful. Below are vaults and galleries which 
probably formed one of the entrances to Solomon's 
temple, and contain many of the vast bevelled stones 
and two or three of the massive pillars of its original 



EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 161 

construction, about three thousand years old. There 
are fine remains, also, of the ancient " Beautiful 
Gate," on the east side of the temple inclosure, and 
the immense reservoirs of water which undermine 
the whole hill are still full and of great interest, but 
we could only peep down through the openings and 
make their vaults resound with the thundering 
echoes of our voices. The curb-stones of these reser- 
voirs are worn all round their inner surface, to the 
depth of six or eight inches, by the friction of the 
well ropes. 

My boots having been stolen by some of the faith- 
ful, while I was within the mosque, I remain yours, 
in a pair of Turkish slippers. 

11 



162 MR. DUNN BROWNE'S 



CHAPTER XXXVII. 

MARE ASPHALTICUM. 

On a fine February morning in the year 1856, 
might have been seen, issuing from the western gate 
of Jerusalem, and winding along over the rocky but 
verdant hills towards Bethlehem, two solitary horse- 
men, oh no, I beg Mr. James's pardon, a cavalcade of 
sixteen sunburned, weather-beaten travellers, clad 
in a combination of all the various costumes of the 
countries they had visited ; mounted upon fifteen 
ugly, rough-coated, awkwardly-saddled, shovel-stir- 
ruped, Syrian horses and one abstracted, intro- 
spective, metaphysical donkey ; accompanied by the 
usual Oriental suite of dragomen, muleteers, servants, 
and Bedouin guards. Had any curious observer 
seen the above-mentioned interesting company and 
inquired (in a polite and respectful manner) respect- 
ing their destination, he would have been told in 
Arabic, Armenian, French, Italian, or English, accord- 
ing to his selection of an informant, that they were 



EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 163 

a party of Yankees, Canadians, Scotch, etc. etc., go- 
ing to Jericho, by way of Bethlehem, the Dead Sea ; 
and the Jordan. Thankful and glad for the bright 
morning sun, instead of the rain we had the previous 
evening anticipated, on we go, cheerfully prancing 
and galloping and laughing and chatting, amidst the 
singing of birds, through the fields of grain, over 
the stones, trampling underfoot the pretty flowers, 
throwing into the air clouds of dust with the hoofs 
of our mettlesome steeds, and devouring the distance 
at the rate of six miles an hour at the very least. 

We pass on the left the identical tree, (possibly 
two hundred years old,) on which Judas hanged 
himself, then on the right a lovely valley and sloping 
ascent covered with olives, and after a while just to 
tne right of our path a plain white building, the 
tomb of Rachel ; then, the road getting very rough 
and rocky, at the end of two hours we reach the 
famous pools of Solomon, three in number, irregu- 
larly shaped, from thirty to sixty feet deep, of vast 
size, one above another in the narrow valley, in tol- 
erably good repair, but now empty. The old aque- 
duct still conveys a small stream of water from a 
cool fountain just above the pools, quite to Jerusa- 
lem, I think. Following the course of this aqueduct 
eastward, we soon look down upon the narrow rib- 



164 mk. dunn browne's 

bon of meadow, like a stream of living verdure flow- 
ing between the barren limestone hills, or like a huge 
green serpent winding down the valley, which was 
purchased a few years since by some Americans for 
the purpose of testing the agricultural capabilities of 
the country. The experiment has proved, I believe, 
rather a failure ; but a prettier little farm could n't 
be found in all Palestine and a long journey besides. 
Chancing to pour into the ear of my friend " Wil- 
liam, the Conqueror," some rather poetical remarks 
upon the loveliness of this verdant valley, that 
enthusiastic monarch turned his bland countenance 
upon the charming scene for a moment, and re- 
marked, in his inimitable way, " Yes, it is rather 
green." 

In about three quarters of an hour, we climbed a 
high hill, (so steep that one of our horses fell over 
backwards, rider, saddle, and all,) into Bethlehem, 
where we were hospitably entertained at the con- 
vent, and shown the manger (of stone) where the 
infant Saviour was laid, in a hewn grotto deep 
under the ground, and the precise spot where he was 
born marked by a silver star, directly over which 
stood " the Star in the East." Around the star is a 
Latin inscription, " Here was born Jesus Christ of the 
Virgin Mary," and many silver lamps are constantly 



EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 165 

burning both in this place and over the manger, and 
two or three exquisite little pictures by Murillo are 
also to be seen. The church and adjoining build- 
ings are so divided up and partitioned off to keep 
asunder the belligerent Greeks and Catholics, as to 
spoil all the harmony of proportion and beauty of 
architecture. 

Three hours more eastward bring us to the strange 
old Greek convent of San Saba, built into and hewn 
out of the rocky side of a tremendous gorge five or 
six hundred feet in depth, which is a continuation of 
the valley of Jehoshaphat down to the Dead Sea. 
As we approached from the west down the hill, 
nothing but two solitary towers, perhaps thirty rods 
apart, were visible. After knocking a while at a 
gate near the foot of one of them, a basket was let 
down from an upper window, and our letters of rec- 
ommendation from Jerusalem drawn up and exam- 
ined, whereupon we were admitted and cordially 
greeted by a brown monk with a rope about his 
waist, and, dismounting, we followed him down 
flights of steps, through strong doors and curious 
passages cut in the rock, down more flights of stairs, 
ever down, down, down, till we thought the bottom 
of the old building had fallen out, and ourselves 
were destined to become an infinite descending 



166 me. dunn browne's 

series, but we obtained soundings at last, and an- 
chored in safety in a large apartment surrounded by 
a sort of divan, on which we slept such a sleep as 
only travellers on horseback over stony mountains 
can enjoy. 

In the morning we made an exploration of the 
convent, saw forty thousand skulls of hermits who 
have died, within the last one or two thousand years, 
in the rock-hewn cells of this vicinity, and resumed 
our journey over the conical, volcanic looking hills 
which surround the Dead Sea. The country is, to 
be sure, rather desolate, but by no means the fright- 
ful wilderness I had anticipated. The scenery is 
very soft and beautiful, the hills all curves and no 
angles, smooth and covered with a thin verdure 
which thousands of goats are cropping. The sea 
seemed but a few steps distant, yet we have been 
four long hours in reaching it, and I hope never to 
have so much down hill travelling again. It makes 
one feel mean to have such depths to descend into. 

Having read much of the disagreeable effects of 
bathing in the Dead Sea, we now proceed at once 
to make trial of the same, and as this chapter is 
growing considerably long, perhaps you may as well 
leave us for the present, disporting ourselves in these 
clear, buoyant waters, like a school of porpoises let 



EXPERIENCES IN EOREIGN PARTS. 167 

out to play, in a short recess from their severe nauti- 
cal studies. You need not fear for our safety, as 
none of our party have sufficient specific gravity to 
be able to drown themselves in these anti-suicidal 
waters, which are called, so improperly, the Dead 
Sea. Yours, bituminously. 



168 ME. DUNN BROWNE'S 



CHAPTER XXXVIII. 

DOES NOT " TARRY AT JERICHO." 

We all enjoyed our bath wonderfully, and experi- 
enced none of those disagreeable consequences of 
which so many travellers have spoken, except indeed 
an incrustation of salt over our faces, and a slight 
oily sensation of the skin, an impression as if we 
were saturated with grease and would burn if lighted. 
(My friend Isham, who is standing by my side, sug- 
gests that there is a little exaggeration about that 
last remark. Very well, my dear fellow, I will not 
insist that you would become " a burning and shining 
light" even after a dozen baths in the Dead Sea. 
But what would become of all the poetry of the 
world if a body couldn't color his descriptions a bit? 
So don't be interrupting me any more, please, it 
makes such long parentheses.) The wonderful buoy- 
ancy of the water made manifest such a compara- 
tive lightness of our bodies and such an exhilarating 
lightness of spirits too, that we indulged in a thou- 



EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 169 

sand amusing gambols such as you would scarcely 
expect, perhaps, from the dignified personages to 
whom you have recently been introduced. You can 
take any sort of position you choose, stand, sit, lie on 
your back, fold your arms and go to sleep, read, eat 
your lunch, or even write a letter, I verily believe, re- 
clining on those luxurious cushions of waves. But 
woe be to you if any portion of your cuticle is bro- 
ken or removed, and those briny drops gaining ad- 
mittance to your eyes, are sure to return with other 
briny drops as usury following them. The taste of 
the water is a combination and concentration of 
whatever is unpleasant to the palate. 

Having gone through a variety of striking tableaux 
and satisfied our philosophical curiosity in reference 
to this wondrous lake, we remounted, and putting 
our steeds upon their mettle, (they have a deal 
more spirit than their looks indicate and are capital 
on a gallop,) we made in forty minutes the two 
hours' ride over the salt plain to the Ford of the Jor- 
dan. It is a salt plain indeed. In many places you 
can gather it in handfuls, almost pure. Of course 
nothing grows in this region. It is much more des- 
olate and appareutly accursed than the country west 
of the sea. The Jordan itself is not visible till you 
come to its very shores, and doesn't present any very 



170 mr. dunn browne's 

inviting appearance even then, being a dreadfully 
muddy, unpicturesque stream, rushing along at a 
tremendous rate between two banks, about twenty 
yards asunder, lined with dirty willows ; in short, 
though I had made up my mind to be disap- 
pointed in the Jordan, I was much more disap- 
pointed than I expected. Our party of course pro- 
ceeded at once to rinse off the slime of the Dead Sea 
by a bath in the sacred stream. Those who were 
swimmers, headed by the Professor, in spectacles, 
passed very readily over to "the other side Jordan," 
by going a little up stream where the water was 
deeper and not quite so swift, but your humble ser- 
vant, attempting to wade across at the Ford where 
the depth is not much over four feet, found the cur- 
rent so rapid that it lifted him up bodily, (the gravity 
of his body not being so great as that of his disposi- 
tion,) and would have borne him down to be pre- 
served in asphaltum in the Dead Sea but for the 
powerful arm of a tall Bedouin Arab Shekh, who 
was making the passage by his side, and who was 
satisfied with the very reasonable sum of four pias- 
tres for saving to the world the author of this verita- 
ble history. 

Having thoroughly tested the effect of the water 
externally, we proceeded to make an internal appli- 



EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 171 

cation in connection with our lunch, and really for a 
mixture of clay, limestone and water, it was n't very 
bad to take. Taking one last farewell look of the 
old Jewish river, and carrying up with us for a me- 
morial, like the Israelites, a few stones from its bed, 
(though not quite so large pebbles as they took,) and 
also an assortment of ugly canes from the w T illow 
trees above referred to, we turned our faces again 
westward, and in two hours arrived at the site of an- 
cient Jericho, having suffered considerably from the 
intense heat in our journey across the plain, although 
it was the 23d of February and in latitude some- 
where about that of the city of Washington. It 
must be perfectly intolerable in summer. In this 
valley we thought we could see the snow-crowned 
summit of Hermon away north of the Sea of Gali- 
lee, eighty or ninety miles distant. Being utterly 
disgusted with Jericho, and our beards having al- 
ready a tolerable growth, we resolved not to tarry, 
but ordered out our horses and started at seven 
and a half P. M. in a glorious moonlight for Jerusa- 
lem, which is six or seven hours distant, and those 
same tough little horses who had carried us since 
seven in the morning, and engaged in several sharp 
little races in the bargain, bore us unflaggingly 
through that long night ride, over roads, too, where 



172 MR. DUNN BROWNE'S 

an American horse would bring up dead lame in two 
hours. I think we were on horseback fifteen hours 
out of that twenty-four. The scenery in this region, 
(the hill country towards Jerusalem,) is extremely 
wild, savage, and stern, and we became as tired of 
riding up hill before we reached the Mount of Olives 
as we had been the day previous of descending. 
What difficult creatures we are to satisfy, indeed ! 

We passed, during the night, several picturesque 
Bedouin encampments. They would have proved 
something more than picturesque to us, doubtless, 
if we hadn't mustered so strong a force, for these 
tall, grim fellows are equally adepts at both their 
trades of shepherd and robber, and with their sheep- 
skins over their shoulders, suggested to our minds 
very readily the idea of " wolves in sheep's clothing." 



EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 173 



CHAPTER XXXIX. 



SAMARIA AND GALILEE. 



After one has seen all that is of interest above 
ground, in and about Jerusalem, there still remains 
to him who is fond of burrowing, at least a year's 
subterranean explorations in the vicinity. All the 
rocky hills about the city are full of excavations, some- 
times connecting with one another, tomb after tomb, 
for fifteen hundred feet underground. Mount Moriah 
is all undermined with a series of stupendous reser- 
voirs, which have not yet been fully explored, and be- 
neath the whole city are vast quarries, where you may 
wander miles and miles ere you begin to retrace your 
steps, where are caves and grottos, fountains, streams 
of running water, etc. The only entrance to this 
' last described series of quarries, is by a little hole in 
the wall just east of the Damascus gate, outside the 
city, into which a slender man can barely crawl, as 
the Professor and myself can testify from actual ex- 
perience. We wriggled in through this muddy aper- 



174 MR. DUNN BROWNE'S 

ture, (it was a rainy day,) a distance of eight feet, 
and then climbed down a wall six feet, head fore- 
most, at least I did, but the Professor profiting by my 
experience, entered in the reverse order, with eminent 
success, and we proceeded to explore, with no guide 
but our own sagacity, to the extent of our six inches 
of spermaceti. . . . 

"We departed from the Holy City as we entered it, 
in the gray light of the early morning, and as we 
caught our last glimpse from the distant northern hills, 
the sun had just broken forth over the top of Olivet, 
and was gilding with a halo of glory, those venerable 
domes and battlements, covering them with beauty 
and brightness in our remembrance, as if we had 
caught a passing glimpse of the heavenly Jerusalem, 
rejoicing in the beams of the great Sun of Righteous- 
ness himself. A nd thus we bade adieu to the Holy 
City, and passed on by the lofty " Nebi Samwill " 
on the left, surrounded by beautiful slopes covered 
with olives, and then on our right the ruins of Bethel, 
rode a half hour in a heavy shower of rain, dried our- 
selves in the bright sun which succeeded it, stopped 
to lunch in a pretty green valley by the side of a 
spring, sitting on the first bit of real turf that I have 
seen in Syria, (we took the precaution to spread our 
blankets over it before sitting down however,) then 



EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 175 

mounting again our untiring steeds, after a long day 
of eleven hours in the saddle, we found welcome rest 
at last in the pleasant town of Nablous, the ancient 
Shechem, a garden-surrounded little city of twelve 
thousand inhabitants, snugly ensconced in the nar- 
row valley which keeps asunder the grim, stony, bel- 
ligerent-looking mountains Ebal and Gerizim. 

At the entrance of this valley we turned a little off 
our road through a ploughed field to see Jacob's well, 
but did n't see it, as the proprietor of those grounds, 
in order to check the curiosity of travellers, has bro- 
ken in the roof of the room which covered the well's 
mouth, and you can't get the slightest glimpse of the 
water or any thing that looks like a well. Perhaps 
you can imagine with what revengeful delight we 
spread out our company of horse over that man's 
field, and took pains to trample down his young 
wheat. I should make it a point always to ride out 
to that well if I were going past every day. From 
Nablous three hours in the bright morning sun, over 
a thick carpet of variegated flowers, brought us up to 
the head of the valley to ancient Samaria, absolutely 
the finest situation for a city that I have seen yet, 
but occupied at present by a set of ill-mannered 
wretches who threw 'stones at us as we were examin- 
ing the ruins of an ancient church, and then brought 



176 mr. dunn browne's 

a parcel of long striped guns to bear upon us, merely 
because we drew our revolvers and threatened to 
shoot them if they did n't take their departure. Hav- 
ing compromised this slight difficulty, and effected a 
truce with the barbarians through the agency of our 
excellent Michael, the prince of Dragomen, if I may 
be allowed to speak electrically, a prime conductor, 
we proceeded to lunch amidst a grove of marble col- 
umns, (granite though upon second thought,) whereof 
something less than a thousand remain standing in 
witness of the splendor of the ancient city, and then 
rode over several rough, uninteresting hills, and 
through several fertile valleys, catching glimpses 
on the heights, of the sea and of snowy Herman, till 
at last we came to the entrance of the great plain of 
Esdraelon, to the Arab village of Janin, a place 
which has made a deep impression on my memory, 
as the scene of the most utterly miserable night of my 
experience. The " miserable night" of the wretched 
Clarence in Richard the Third could n't compare with 
it at all, because his was capable of description and 
mine isn't, and his was a dream, while mine was 
quite the contrary, and besides, a guilty conscience, 
(which seemed to be the principal source of his 
trouble,) as far as my experience goes, is nothing to a 
myriad of fleas. We were eleven, in a room eight 



EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 177 

feet by ten, which was full, before we entered it, of 
vermin, of dirt, of stagnant tobacco smoke, and of un- 
pleasant Arab smells. 

The journal of the next day, (the third from Jeru- 
salem,) if there were time to write it, would make 
mention of the troop of gazelles we saw bounding 
over the rolling plain of Esdraelon, would speak in 
fitting terms of the oft described Mount Tabor, 
which rises in lonely beauty just to the left of our 
path after we have ascended from Esdraelon between 
Gilboa and Little Hermon, would enlarge upon the 
beauty and fertility of this country of Galilee, and at 
last go into perfect raptures as, at sunset, we stand 
on the brow of the high hill which overlooks the Sea 
of Tiberias, and look down upon that fair, sweet lake, 
on whose borders Jesus loved to dwell, and whose 
waters once bore up his steps. 'Twas Saturday 
night, and slowly and quietly we descended to the 
little town of Tiberias to spend a Sabbath, for once 
in our lives, by the Sea of Galilee. 

12 



178 mr. dunn Browne's 



CHAPTER XL. 



OVER LAND TO BEYROUT. 



The Sea of Galilee is surrounded by smooth green 
hills, very high and steep on the north and south- 
west, sloping gently down to the water's edge on the 
north-east and north-west, with even a bit of plain on 
the west, but to the south-east, the ancient country 
of the Gadarenes, rises abruptly a wall of chalk cliffs 
six hundred feet high, like the shore of the Dead Sea 
itself. Tiberias, the only town now remaining on its 
shores, is a city-like village surrounded by an imposing 
wall, (which is, however, fast falling into ruins,) con- 
taining, I should think, five hundred, but according 
to our host, fourteen hundred, inhabitants, mostly 
Polish and Spanish Jews, very dirty but learned ; 
indeed, this is the principal seat of learning among 
the Jews, and every third man you meet is a rabbi 
with his head crammed with Talmudical lore, which 
he imparts, (for a consideration,) to the youthful 
Hebrews, who resort hither from various quarters of 
the world to complete their theological education. 



EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 179 

A violent storm of wind and rain arose Sunday 
afternoon, so' that we saw the lake not only in its 
peaceful calm, but also when the waves were lashed 
into fury. I looked out from my window, and could 
almost see the scene of walking on the water, and 
our Saviour stretching forth his hand to save the 
trembling Peter from the watery grave into which 
his unbelief was sinking him. 

Monday morning, after taking a bath in the pure 
waters of the lake, and visiting the hot springs a 
little below Tiberias, we wound our way up the hill 
again, cast one last lingering look at the lovely 
scene below us, and took up our route to Nazareth, 
six hours distant. But scarcely were we settled 
in our saddles when the clouds gathered thick and 
pitiless over our defenceless heads, and it began 
first to drizzle, then to rain, and then to pour down 
upon us in torrents, and for three mortal hours did 
we plod along in that driving, drenching rain, find- 
ing no mercy from the clouds above and no shelter 
on the earth beneath. . Your humble servant, who 
had caught cold the evening previous, in a shower 
which fell upon him as he was walking up towards 
Capernaum, began to be sick, and to have shooting 
pains and chills and gloomy forebodings of a Syrian 
fever, and fell gradually behind the rest of the party, 



180 mr. dtjnn browne's 

then behind the muleteers and the baggage, till he 
was left alone, a couple of miles in the rear, just 
able to keep in the saddle, fast losing his interest in 
things generally, and ready to surrender without a 
struggle to the first Bedouin who should accost him 
with the Arabic for " your money or your life." In 
this forlorn state he was picked up by a detachment 
sent back from the main body, who had first dis- 
covered his absence on their halt at Cana of Galilee, 
and brought in so weak in body and mind as abso- 
lutely to believe for a few moments in the stone 
jars which are shown at that place as the identical 
jars that contained the water made wine at the mar- 
riage feast. A draught from the company's spirit- 
flask restored a little his strength, (and of course his 
unbelief,) and without further accident we all arrived 
in safety at Nazareth, and were received with great 
hospitality by the Fathers of the Latin convent. 

Nazareth has a fine situation overhanging a pretty 
green valley of fruit-trees, about four thousand in- 
habitants, and a thriving well-to-do appearance, rare 
enough to find in oppressed, tax-ridden Palestine. 
One day more over the plain of Esdraelon again, 
with no incidents of travel save plenty of gazelles, 
foxes, jackals, and Bedouin robbers, all of whom 
seemed to avoid our company, brought us to the 



EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 181 

bold promontory of Carmel, where rest is found in 
the ever-hospitable convent, (certainly a most com- 
fortable institution in such a country as Syria). 

The next day a magnificent gallop of four hours 
over the hard beach of fine sand, where the horses' 
hoofs scarcely left a trace, gave us abundant time 
to visit the fortifications of Acre, which the Bashaw 
politely sent an officer to show us, after we had 
drank coffee and smoked long amber-mouthed pipes 
with him. One other day's journey amidst broken 
pillars and ruins of huge aqueducts and bridges, to 
the small town which occupies the site of ancient 
Tyre, and still another day just like the last, to Si- 
don, and one final, long, hard day, with a rapid river 
to ford, and rocky promontories to climb, and deep 
sand to wade through, bring us to the end of the 
week, and to Beyrout, the end of our journey, and 
me to the end of this chapter, for all which blessings 
I am truly thankful and trust you are the same. 



182 mr. dunn Browne's 



CHAPTER XLI. 

THE AEGEAN A1ND THE DARDANELLES. 

March 22cl. — On board the French steamer 
Tamise, (Thames,) in the Archipelago, in sight of 
Scio and Cos and Patmos, and just out of sight of 
Rhodes, opposite which, in a little cove in the main 
land, we have been waiting two days for the equi- 
noctial storm to come and go by, but as the weather 
has continued calm and the passengers have mani- 
fested an unreasonable desire to get somewhere some 
time, our prudent French officers have started out 
to-day, running the risk of getting to Smyrna be- 
fore the storm comes, (of which there isn't the slight- 
est appearance). We shall have been about ten 
days crawling from Beyrout up to Smyrna, a pas- 
sage which a Yankee boat would make in two days 
easily, stopping a day or two at every little dirty 
town on the way, (and it is astonishing what a 
number of them there are,) and putting into port 
whenever there is any appearance of a breeze. At 



EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 183 

Rhodes, the ancient stronghold of the famous 
Knights of St. John, and the only place of any in- 
terest along the whole coast, we were unable to 
land, but were taken, much against our will, into 
the little cove above mentioned, where the only in- 
cident of interest for two days was the hunt, capture, 
and slaughter, by our sailors, of a terrific wild boar. 
His struggles, (in the arms of the stout seaman 
who brought him on board,) were fearful to behold, 
and he weighed, when dressed, nearly one hundred 
pounds. 

Nothing can be more striking than these count- 
less islands of the iEgean, with their bold, abrupt 
shores rising defiantly out of the waves, their rough, 
treeless mountain sides, and queer little nests of 
harbors. Striking but not very beautiful, save at a 
distance. Some of them are exceedingly small, 
mere specks on the surface of the waters. This 
must be the birthplace of the islands, I am sure, 
and as they grow up big enough to take care of 
themselves, Father Neptune doubtless cuts them 
adrift from their nursery here, to seek their fortune 
and settle down in the world where they best can. 
Some of them have become very celebrated in fable 
and in song, some have married ambitious penin- 
sulas and never been heard of more, some have 



184 me. dunn Browne's 

raised up nice little families of their own, away in a 
distant ocean, some have remained crusty old bach- 
elors, venting their spleen in explosive volcanoes, 
some have lived gay lives and given themselves up 
wholly to wine, some have flatted out into humdrum 
wheat-fields, some have turned their attention to 
war and became famous military and naval stations, 
a few have taken to piracy, and a great many to 
reputable commerce. But whatever be their grown- 
up fate, the little infants here are very pert and saucy 
in appearance, rise boldly out of the waves, and 
look as if they wouldn't be imposed upon, even by a 
continent. 

Beyrout, (which I ought to have mentioned be- 
fore, only that the objects nearest me first attracted 
my attention,) is beyond comparison the finest town 
on the eastern coast of the Mediterranean, surrounded 
with rich gardens, fig orchards, and the most beauti- 
ful olive groves in the world. And then the scenery; 
there is the sea on the west and north, the stately 
ridge of Lebanon, with snowy peaks nine thousand 
feet high, overhanging it on the east, in contrast 
with the green, black, blue, and brown hills below, 
and then toward the south, the fertile plain, sprinkled 
with all manner of fruit-trees and covered with 
oceans of flowers, and even yet I have n't mentioned 



EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 185 

the sand hill which has been cast up by the sea, and 
is slowly advancing from the west to overwhelm 
the city. It is truly a charming place, and healthful, 
too, save that the cholera will come along occasion- 
ally. This is the centre of the American missionary 
operations in Syria, and we found several old friends 
and acquaintances among the missionaries, who 
made our stay in Beyrout exceedingly pleasant, so 
that for once we didn't regret the tardiness of our 
steamer which arrived as usual four or five days be- 
hind time. It afforded me very great gratification to 
see how comfortably, not only here but throughout 
the East where I have come in contact with them, 
our missionaries live. They have good houses, good 
furniture, good servants, and good living, and are 
thus enabled to devote themselves entirely to the 
appropriate duties of their calling, without that con- 
stant burden of anxiety as to what they shall eat, 
drink, and wear, and how they shall support their 
families, which paralyzes the energies of so many 
clergymen in country towns here at home, and es- 
pecially in our Western Home Missionary field. 
Our missionaries in Western Asia are well sup- 
ported, held in high estimation by both natives and 
foreigners in those regions, enjoy considerable good 
society, and are, in general, every way a credit to 
thenselves, to the Board, and to our country. 



186 MR. DUNN BROWNE'S 

March 23d. — Stopped at Smyrna on the Sab- 
bath, (Easter,) attended a service about two and a 
half hours long at the English chapel, and at four 
o'clock resumed our voyage. You would think 
Smyrna a very beautiful place, with its dark cypress 
groves and streets rising one above another on the 
side of the hill, if you were only wise enough not to 
land, but that destroys the illusion. 

March 25th. — Constantinople. — We have had a 
lovely passage from Smyrna, by Lesbos, Tenedos, 
Troy, Mount Ida, the Dardanelles, Abydos, etc., 
beautiful in themselves and all steeped in historical 
and poetical recollections. The scenery up the straits 
is very fine, though the shores are not fertile, as I ex- 
pected, but generally bleak and barren. I suspect 
we are a little too early to see Constantinople in its 
beauty. There needs the verdure of May, and 
withal a greater variety of trees, to sustain its 
reputation of being the most beautiful spot in the 
world, even limiting the world to that small portion 
of it seen by the writer hereof. There is an incredi- 
ble activity and energy in these regions. We passed 
some three hundred vessels from the Dardanelles up 
to this place, and here the Golden Horn is crowded 
with ships of every nation and flag. All is bustle 
and confusion, and red coats and clanking swords 
and mustachios and ammunition wagons, and young 



EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 187 

middies and drunken sailors and cannon and bomb- 
shells and abominably high prices and other warlike 
symptoms. After finding one of the cheaper hotels, 
where the price is only three dollars a day, we, that 
is, " W. H. P." and myself, (our party split at Bey- 
rout, on the subject of going to Damascus, and our 
half divided again at Smyrna, on account of the 
sickness, wellnigh unto death even, of our beloved 
Isham,) proceeded to explore the city a little. 
Crossed the Golden Horn, from Galata to Stamboul 
proper, by the old bridge of boats, (they have two 
beautiful new ones for show, but use them scarcely 
at all,) engaged for guide an arbitrary little Jewish 
boy who insisted on taking us to the bazaars before 
visiting St. Sophia, but after an obstinate struggle 
we drove him on before us to the great church, where 
we found several of our English fellow passengers 
standing forlornly before a locked door, threatening, 
in bad French and wicked English, all manner of 
vengeance from British ambassadors and consuls 
and armies, if the entrance was not unbarred, but a 
little quiet talk from those who were used to that 
sort of people, and a shilling backsheesh from each, 
soon operated as a talisman for our admission. As, 
however, the full and accurate description of the ven- 
erable edifice, which I should give, would occupy 



188 MR. DUNN BROWNE'S 

nearly a chapter by itself, perhaps you had better 
take leave of us standing under the lofty dome with 
our boots in our hands, (taking warning from our 
experience in the Mosk Omar,) in which position 
please allow the curtain to drop. 



EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 189 



CHAPTER XLTI. 

THE CRIMEA. 

Ah well, I have been to the Crimea, and seen 
camps and real armies, the "pomp and circumstance" 
of glorious war, (two days after the news of peace 
arrived,) slept at Sebastopol, picked up a broken 
bayonet on the heights of the MalakofT, seen a great 
town roofless and in ruins, and a country covered 
for miles and miles with cannon balls and broken 
shells. And one such sight is enough for a lifetime. 
But to particularize a little. We took passage in 
the British transport " Tynemouth," a steamer as I 
supposed from the smoke pipe and the puffing, bufc 
as our jovial old captain informed me " only a sail- 
ing vessel with a bit of a screw in the stern just to 
assist in steering." By making the most of her va- 
rious means of locomotion we succeeded in running 
the three hundred and fifty miles or so to Balaklava 
in three days. The passage up the Bosphorus is 
the loveliest imaginable, one constant succession of 



190 mr. dunn Browne's 

picturesque villages, wooded promontories, quiet 
little bays, castles, palaces,' gardens, groves, and cot- 
tages ; just one of those delightful trips where one 
wishes all his frends were with him to share the en- 
joyment. The Black Sea, however, is dull and stu- 
pid as any other waste of waters, and right glad 
were we when it was announced at last that the har- 
bor of Balaklava was in sight. Going upon deck, 
however, I found that it was visible only to the eye of 
faith, for not a break or cleft could I discern in a long 
line of high white cliffs which rose like a hostile wall 
forbidding our approach. But when, after cruising off 
and on for an hour or two till our boat came off with 
permission from the admiral to enter the harbor, we 
approached at last that formidable wall, a narrow 
line appeared which widened and opened like the 
folds of a door into a passage just wide enough to 
admit the ship, and turning a tolerably sharp corner 
to the right, we found ourselves in as snug a little 
miniature pocket edition of a harbor as you will find 
in a year's sailing. And crowded as it already was 
with shipping, our immensely long unwieldy craft 
found difficulty in getting a berth, and ran her bow- 
sprit into the rigging of one vessel, and bumped her 
stern against another, a beautiful Sardinian steamer, 
destroying and producing a considerable amount of 
railing on her quarter-deck. 



EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 191 

Landing as soon as was practicable, we strolled 
through the streets of the extempore, California-like 
town of shanties, which lines the harbor, climbed 
over several steep hills, and wandered about a couple 
of hours among the tents of the soldiers, entered sev- 
eral of them and even took a bit of a lunch with some 
jolly fellows of the eighty-ninth regiment, (English). 
Their shanties, which accommodate sixteen or eigh- 
teen soldiers each, are generally perhaps twenty feet 
long and fourteen wide, with a door at one end and 
a little window at the other, a platform six feet wide 
and a foot high, running the whole length each side, 
and a long narrow table standing on the ground in 
the space between, and a little stove beyond it at 
the further end, the clothing and accoutrements hang- 
ing all around. They have not many chairs, the 
platform referred to answering therefor as well as for 
floor and bedstead. On the whole the soldiers find 
these residences very comfortable, certainly much 
superior to tents in this respect if not so picturesque. 
The Sardinians and the French have very generally 
made little gardens about their huts, and planted 
evergreens, giving them quite an air of rustic beauty 
and elegance. 

We visited also the clean, comfortable Hospitals 
of the English and Sardinians, where the most ad- 
mirable neatness and order reign throughout all the 



192 MR. DUNN BROWNE'S 

arrangements, and the sick and disabled are cared 
for almost with the kindness of a home. Even wo- 
man's gentle hand was there to smooth the pillow, 
and her quiet step gliding among the couches, to 
call up visions of mothers' and sisters' care. Those 
Sisters of Charity, in plain dress of drab and closely- 
fitting muslin cap, have often seemed, no doubt, 
to those poor, mangled victims of bombshells and 
Minie bullets, like angels ministering to their suffer- 
ings. 

The roads throughout this region, from camp to 
camp and from hospital to burying-ground, every- 
where indeed, are truly excellent, and will be one 
permanent blessing bestowed by the Allies upon the 
country. Returning from the inhospitable shore, 
(no lodgings to be had for love or money,) to the 
hospitable bosom of our ship to rest for the night, 
we rose betimes in the morning and proceeded to 
walk to Sebastopol, eight or nine miles distant. 
We walked simply because we chose, (catch a free 
and enlightened American citizen doing any thing 
upon compulsion). To be sure there wasn't a horse 
or mule to be had in Balaklava even at the estab- 
lished rate of a pound sterling per day, and the rail- 
road built by the British doesn't carry passengers, 
and cabs haven't yet been introduced into the 
Crimea. 



EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 193 

All the way is one great camp. I had no idea 
armies occupied so much room. And very gay and 
splendid was the whole scene ; the clouds of white 
tents, (I was talking about huts a moment since, but 
it would be too much work to describe huts for 
the whole army, to say nothing about building 
them,) the streaming banners, the vast bodies of in- 
fantry performing their evolutions, (it was a kind of 
review day and everybody was in the field,) the 
bright uniforms, the glittering bayonets and dancing 
plumes, the soul-stirring music, the splendid cavalry, 
the grim and terrible cannons, and above all the 
thought that it was n't a mere sham militia muster, 
but the stern reality of blood-steeped armies that I 
was looking upon, made the pageant of that day 
something to be long remembered. 

But impressive as was the sight of the living 
armies moving in stately pride before us, I was yet 
more affected by the vast cemeteries that we passed,, 
where repose the armies of the dead, the common 
soldiers with no record on their graves, in great in- 
closures surrounded by a deep ditch, the officers in 
small plots of ground, usually one for each regiment, 
inclosed by a neat, substantial wall, and planted 
with beautiful evergreens. Every thing is in good 
taste, the stones well wrought and of the best mar- 

13 



194 mr. dunn browne's 

bles, the inscriptions generally brief but many of 
them very affecting. I could not but notice how 
many youth had found their graves in the Crimea. 

" Charles E , aged seventeen, fell on the 

Heights of Inkerman." " Edward, son of Lord 

, aged eighteen, died of wounds received in 

leading his men to the attack upon the Redan," and 
scores of similar inscriptions, we read. Nearly all 
the amputations and severe surgical operations were 
fatal to the younger sufferers, while the tough vet- 
erans survived to return home cripples, " honorably 
discharged." A cannon ball lay usually at the head 
and foot of each officer's grave. The extent of these 
" camps of the dead " is fearful to look upon, acres 
upon acres, and square miles almost, all ridged into 
new-made graves, appearing in the distance like the 
furrows of newly-ploughed fields. 



EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 195 



CHAPTER XLIII. 

MODERN RUINS. 

Before we were within two miles of Sebastopol, 
the ground began to be cut up into trenches and 
piled up into breastworks, and to be covered with 
cannon balls and fragments of shells, lying so closely 
together that you might walk any distance on them 
as a pavement, without once touching the earth. I 
could n't have believed that so much good useful iron 
had been perverted into death-dealing projectiles 
since the devil first taught Friar Bacon the invention 
of gunpowder. Why, there is enough lying within 
a circle about Sebastopol of five miles diameter, to 
build all the iron steamers now afloat, and give each 
of them a cargo in the bargain. 

As we came over the brow of the hill which com- 
mands a view of the town, the first thing to strike 
us was the beauty of the harbor, and the next, the 
strangeness of a city without roofs. I wasn't aware 
before that the roof was so important a feature of 



196 mr. dunn Browne's 

the house, considered in the light of a picture. Un- 
cover Boston and look down upon it from Bunker 
Hill monument. That's the easiest way I can sug- 
• gest to you of getting an adequate idea of the thing. 
If this does n't answer the purpose, why, put the roofs 
on, come down again and give it up ; it 's no use 
trying. Drawing nearer we came to a hill evidently 
once fortified, but now so torn and tortured out of all 
resemblance to any thing natural or artificial, and 
withal covered with such a chaos of broken military 
iron-mongery, as to arrest our attention at once and 
put us upon making inquiries of a sentinel near by. 
This was the Redan. The earth bears now no traces 
of the blood here spilt, but is covered with a perfect 
hail of bullets beaten into all sorts of shapes and 
shapelessness. The soldier pointed out to us the 
different varieties of Minie ball used by the several 
armies, and we carried away a pocketful of the 
leaden specimens. 

Descending through trampled vineyards and fields 
ploughed with cannon balls, we were soon in the 

streets of the ruined town. I shall never need read 

i 
any more sermons and dissertations on the horrors of 

war. There were churches burned and battered 

down, monuments mutilated, splendid buildings in 

ruins, bridges destroyed, costly docks blown up, the 



EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 197 

harbor encumbered with sunken ships, all business at 
an end, no children playing in the streets, no woman's 
face at the casement, no workman's hammer heard, 
only soldiers to be met on the pavement, desolation) 
cinders, blackened walls, tottering chimneys, fallen 
arches, shattered columns, every thing combustible 
burned, every thing in pieces that was breakable, 
devastation, ruin, war, — Sebastopol. 

Spent the entire afternoon in visiting the ruins of 
the forts Nicholas, Paul, and Alexander, (nothing now 
but mere heaps of stone,) the Malakoff and the stu- 
pendous works of attack and defence, all around the 
south side. I suppose so much labor and treasure 
and powder and blood were never before spent for 
the possession of a single town. The Malakoff is a 
fearfully strong looking place. With my ignorance 
of military matters I would consider it a much easier 
matter to carry the Redan ; however, if you will re- 
ceive my opinion implicitly on every thing else, you 
may take it for what it is worth in affairs of war. 
The Malakoff, like the Redan, is covered with a 
wreck of broken cannon, and gun-carriages, and all 
kinds of military implements, and so tossed about 
and rent in pieces and perverted out of all form and 
comeliness, that one might easily imagine it the Mil- 
tonic scene of conflict between the holy and the rebel 
angels. 



198 mr. dunn Browne's 

Spent the night in one of the dozen houses in the 
place that have a roof still, on a sofa, in a room of 
which one corner has been shot away, and having a 
hole in the ceiling made by the passage of a ball or 
bomb, with just three panes of glass all told in the 
windows, (the rest patched out with paper, cloth, and 
wood,) and furnished with costly mahogany and rose- 
wood articles of various names, bureaus, secreta- 
ries, book-cases, etc., all razeed into tables, because 
this was a restaurant. Walked about the city again 
an hour or two in the morning, then down to Kami- 
esch, seven miles, through more camps, (the French 
make each camp of theirs a miniature Paris in boards, 
with gay cafes, restaurants, and all sorts of shops with 
flaming signs,) saw the same town of shanties and 
the same crowd of ships as at Balaklava, though 
more of the latter, because the harbor is larger ; and 
embarked for Constantinople, 



EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 199 



CHAPTER XLIV. 

DOWN THE MEDITERRANEAN. 

Indited on board the steamer " Thabor," which is 
at present rather full, Mr. Browne sleeping upon a 
table at night, (strapped on when the sea is very 
rough,) eating his breakfast from the same in the 
morning, and writing upon it the rest of the day. 
The tide of travel is setting very strongly to the west- 
ward at the present time in these Mediterranean re- 
gions. It is indeed necessary to " submit to circum- 
stances " as our philosophical first mate with a flour- 
ish of his cigar and a French shrug of his shoul- 
ders, remarked to me last night, when I ventured a 
gentle remonstrance against being "laid on the table" 
instead of in a state-room. What with the three 
gentlemen who occupy a similar tabular position 
with myself, and the four gentlemen who spread 
themselves under the tables, and the five slim gentle- 
men who sleep on the narrow cushioned seats which 
surround our cabin, and the very fat Turkish gentle- 



200 mr. dtjnn browne's 

man who covers the remaining space of the floor at 
our end of the room, and the three waiters who hud- 
dle promiscuously in the pantry among the knives 
and forks ; considering also that two of my room 
mates snore and a third persists in throwing slippers 
and brushes at their heads to wake them, and that 
several others are desperately sea-sick, and that the 
French officer on my right invariably smokes a cigar 
after retiring, and that a young family of teething 
children haunts a state-room at my head ; a lively 
imagination may assist this unexaggerated sketch in 
giving you a tolerable idea of the comforts of travel- 
ling at ten dollars a day, as exemplified on the 
steamer Thabor down the Mediterranean. 

Our deck is encumbered with a regiment or so of 
French soldiers, with mustachios and baggy panta- 
loons, both of a dirty red. Their officers are a rather 
gentlemanly set of fellows, dressed in the " shabby 
genteel" style, (which is to be sure quite to be 
expected after a campaign in the Crimea,) whose 
thoughts are much occupied with eating and drink- 
ing, and who hate the English most cordially. I 
have been somewhat surprised to find so much ill- 
feeling existing everywhere between the Allies. I 
don't believe the English and French can thoroughly 
like each other. Their union is a mixture of oil and 



EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 201 

water. The Russians, however, who were begin- 
ning to come back to Sebastopol, and even down to 
Constantinople, when we were there, were received 
with open arms by the French. I saw an amusing 
scene, just by the ruins of Fort Nicholas, between a 
party of French soldiers and some Russians who 
were just ready to embark in a boat to return to the 
north side after a visit to the ruins of their captured 
city. Both parties were most pathetically and affec- 
tionately drunk, and the embraces and maudlin pro- 
testations of eternal friendship and kisses were 
extremely ludicrous. One in a transport of ardor 
would throw his arms around the neck of his " brave 
ennemi," and the momentum thus imparted would 
bring both to the ground, where they would roll 
around, kissing and hugging each other, till they 
were set on their feet again by their comrades, and 
all would walk quietly on till another ebullition of 
vinous friendship would bring on another similar 
scene. The performances closed with an affectionate 
couple's falling into the water and nearly drowning. 
But returning from this digression to the Crimea, 
I will stop at Constantinople a moment by the way, 
to explain the reason for not sending yon that accu- 
rate description of St. Sophia at which I hinted in 
one of the former chapters. In the first place, I 
did 't have time to make the additional visit I 



202 mr. dunn browne's 

intended, for the purpose of counting the pillars 
again and the number of iron bands that had been 
placed around to strengthen them, and to measure 
the inclination of one which was thrown out of the 
perpendicular by an earthquake ; and then again if I 
were to let strict accuracy go, and " aggravate " the 
description a little, I couldn't possibly tell so large a 
story as Murray in his Handbook, who says the 
gilded crescent which ornaments its dome is fifty 
yards across ; but the main reason perhaps after all, 
is that a friend in whose critical judgment I have the 
greatest confidence, has recently written me that my 
letters would be " more interesting " (which I sup- 
pose is polite for " less tiresome,") if I said not so 
much about things and something more about per- 
sons. So I shall for the future strive to avoid 
descriptions and going into transports over fine scen- 
ery and such hackneyed nonsense, and devote my- 
self more to animate objects, become in short, more 
personal, though I hope not more first personal than 
in the present epistle at least. You may expect here- 
after, such things as the interview I had with King 
Otho and Mrs. Otho at Athens, the audience I 
expect with His Holiness the Pope, and an interest- 
ing sketch of a pimple-faced Italian Count with 
whom I lately came in contact, (owing to a lurch 
of the ship,) etc. etc. 



EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN * PARTS. 203 



CHAPTER XLV. 



ATHENS. 



" Modern Athens ought to be removed. It is a 
very clean, bright, well-built, regular, enterprising 
town, and therefore one wouldn't really wish to 
see it destroyed, but it certainly ought to be re- 
moved. It is dreadfully in the way of ancient 
Athens and seriously injures the effect of the old 
ruins. If it were a dirty Arab mud village like 
those that occupy the sites of ancient cities in 
Egypt and Western Asia, where you will see an 
exquisite marble column built into the clay wall 
of a donkey-stable, and mutilated statues thrust- 
ing their broken noses and stumps of arms out 
among the rude stones of miserable huts, the thing 
wouldn't in that case be so open to criticism, be- 
cause barbarism and ruins go naturally enough 
together and even heighten each other's effects. 
But these prim, smirking, upright, self-conceited, 
civilized edifices, all chequered off into parallelo- 



204 'mr. dunn browne's 

grams, hemming in and crowding upon those 
glorious old temples of Greece's golden age, are 
an impertinent intrusion of the utilitarian upon 
the poetical by no means to be tolerated. It is no 
wonder that the graceful structures crumble away 
and sink into the earth before such shocking en- 
croachments." 

The above is a portion of a philippic delivered 
on the eighteenth of April last, by Mr. Browne 
from the very bema where Demosthenes used to 
thunder against the enemies of his country. The 
audience in the case mentioned, was of the kind 
usually spoken of as " select rather than numerous," 
consisting of a few Yankee friends occupying the 
steps below the orator, a group of gentle Athenian 
maidens (barefooted) in the distance, and nearer at 
hand two huge peasants who were shearing a don- 
key, together with the donkey himself, which latter 
auditor caused the speaker to conclude his remarks 
rather hastily, by the strong symptoms of a bray 
which appeared on his countenance, whether of ap- 
probation or otherwise could not be ascertained. 

Mr. B. has roamed over the Acropolis by moon- 
light, and felt poetical emotions in reference to the 
Parthenon, the Temple of Theseus and that of 
Olympian Jove, but refrains from a description 



EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 205 

under the impression that there is one somewhere 
already extant. 

Having heard any quantity of frightful accounts 
of the banditti in these regions, and learning that 
about a dozen were still lurking in the caves of 
Mt. Pentelicus, ten miles from Athens, our party 
of six Yankees took horses (and plenty of revolvers), 
for an excursion to the summit of that mountain, 
on the day after our arrival. Saw plenty of* robbers, 
if looks can convict a man, but as every one of them 
was engaged (for a pretence probably) in some 
peaceful occupation, such as attending sheep or 
hoeing cabbages, we did not feel justified in shooting 
any, and returned adventureless, having repeated 
the old performance of going up a hill and coming 
down again. The magnificent view of the plain 
and bay of Marathon, the straits of Salamis, and 
Attica with its lovely coast and islands adjacent, 
pays for the journey, however, if you don't bag a 
single bandit. 

King Otho and Mrs. Otho bowed very politely 
to us, as we met in the street about five o'clock, 
but unfortunately were not at home the next day 
when we called at the palace, and our acquaintance 
remains very limited. We went over the huge 
palace though, which is much finer than one would 



206 mr. dunn Browne's 

expect of such a sort of fourth-rate king, and has a 
garden attached which is fit for a firstrate king, or 
an emperor, or a president of the United States. 
The king dresses in the fall Albanian costume, but 
the queen in the Parisian. He is slight, she is very 
plump. He is a Catholic and she a Protestant, and 
their subjects being of the Greek church, certainly 
religious toleration ought to be the result of so many 
different* opinions. The royal pair are patrons of 
a sort of orphan asylum in their own palace, sup- 
porting and educating thirty or forty bright looking 
children of both sexes, whom we saw gathered into 
one of the great rooms, practising vocal music, un- 
der the care of their teachers. 



EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 207 



CHAPTER XLVI. 

QUARANTINE. 

Naples Harbor, April 26th. — After making the 
whole tour of the Mediterranean, (at least that 
part of it which is generally considered the worst,) 
without let or hinderance, except that which arose 
from the fact that every French steamer has been 
behind time save one, (which we missed in conse- 
quence,) here we are brought up at last against a 
ten days' quarantine imposed by the enlightened 
and liberal Neapolitan government, although our 
ship has a clean bill of health and there isn't a 
particle of epidemic or fever or any thing conta- 
gious at Malta, Constantinople, Athens, Smyrna, or 
any of the Eastern ports from which we come. And 
we must shut ourselves up in a prison (literally 
true) ten days in this hot weather without even 
permission to take an hour's row on the bay, or go 
through the farce of sailing three or four hundred 
miles up the coast to Leghorn and coming directly 



208 mr. dunn browne's 

back again by a return steamer, consuming a week's 
time and fifty dollars. I am utterly disgusted with 
the whole arrangement, and consider the Egyptians 
and Turks a civilized and well-behaved people com- 
pared with the Italians. Naples is a dirty-looking 
old town, the celebrated bay quite an ordinary affair, 
and Vesuvius itself only a large sized coal-pit. 

Naples, one week later.— When not seen through 
the spectacles of quarantine this is truly a most 
charming city, the bay, with its lovely islands and 
beautiful circle of towns, all that its most enthusiastic 
admirers ever claimed in its behalf, and Vesuvius as 
fine an old mountain as ever spoiled its digestion by 
falling into the bad habit of smoking. Enjoyed our 
trip up and down the coast of Italy as well as could 
be expected considering the frame of mind we were 
in. Stopped all day at every place, for which I 
could see no reason, as we held no other than oral 
intercourse with the shore, except by little billets 
carried in fumigated tin boxes. At Civita Vecchia 
we found the beautiful United States steamer 
Saranac lying at anchor. One of our American 
passengers, wishing to do the polite towards his 
countrymen, sent his servant to hail the Saranac, 
and inform the officers that he had late United 
States newspapers which were very much at their 



EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 209 

service. The servant, who was a Maltese and did n't 
speak much English, of course blundered with his 
message, and the lieutenant of the Saranac, think- 
ing that some American citizen in distress wished 
his assistance, dons his most splendid unifqrm, girds 
on his longest sword, orders out his largest boat, (of 
sixteen or twenty oars,) and with a couple of dozen 
brave tars comes to the rescue. In answer to his 
hail our friend is obliged to appear on the quarter- 
deck, and explain matters, (at the top of his voice,) 
finds that the Saranac can't receive his newspapers 
without being put in quarantine thereby, and more- 
over that there are on board papers of some five or 
six days' later date. So you see politeness, though 
an admirable virtue, is sometimes a little trouble- 
some, and like roast beef should n't be overdone. 

Arrived at Leghorn at five o'clock, A. M., and 
found that a fast steamer was to leave at twelve for 
Naples and run through in a day. Rejoiced very 
greatly at the opportunity, but found we were quite 
too fast in our calculations, for we could by no means 
be permitted to go from one vessel to the other, 
(they were along-side,) but must first land, for which; 
our permission arrived on board at half past ten, and 
for this permission we paid one dollar each ; then, 
we were obliged to search out the police office, and 

14 



210 mr. dunn Browne's 

wait in a crowd till two lazy officials could select 
our passports and give them up to us, and then go to 
another part of the city for the vise of the Neapoli- 
tan consul, for which we paid one and a half dollars 
each, angl then returning on board, we found ourselves 
too late for the steamer, and were forced to disembark 
our goods and chattels, take them through the cus- 
tom-house and settle ourselves in a hotel two or 
three days, waiting for the next steamer. There is 
nothing like paying a due respect to forms. The 
custom-house officers here have very sharp noses for 
the scent of tobacco, as one of our company, who 
was taking a few pounds of nice Turkish home to 
his father, found to his cost. But a poor little 
Frenchman, more unfortunate still, besides losing a 
hundred cigars which he showed, was fined five dol- 
lars because he said there was no tobacco in his 
trunk, and on opening it two solitary Havanas, 
which he had forgotten, were found lying on the top. 
Leghorn is &free port, very. 



EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 211 



CHAPTER XLVII, 

RETROSPECTIVE FROM THE ETERNAL CITY. 

Being at Rome, I shall now proceed to write you 
a little about Naples, just as at Naples I gave you a 
bit of a sketch of our sea adventures, and on a 
steamer wrote you a letter from Athens, and at 
Athens one from Constantinople, etc. I shall en- 
deavor to overtake myself as soon as possible, so as 
to be able to give a contemporaneous history of 
events, yet this writing a little behind the time is 
not without its advantages, especially in point of 
brevity, one can forget so much in a week or two ; 
moreover it gives a little more room for the imagina- 
tion to exercise itself. 

Of course it will be necessary to say a word or 
two about the weather first of all. As it is gener- 
ally admitted that Naples has the finest climate in 
the world, it must be true. It is also true that in 
the first half of the month of May, 1856, there were 
in Naples only two days which were not rainy, and 



212 MR. DUNN BROWNE'S 

only one clear enough to make a pleasant ascent of 
Vesuvius. These two statements being both true 
cannot be contradictory, therefore I have not said 
any thing prejudicial to the character of the " Italian 
skies," and cannot be accused of grumbling in this 
chapter at least. The next thing to be spoken of in 
Naples, you will doubtless expect to be, the Laz- 
zaroni, but as no amount of search enabled me to 
find any, that topic must needs be passed over. 
Vesuvius also shall go unnoticed, because he has ob- 
stinately persisted in postponing, till after our depart- 
ure, the eruption which he has promised ever since 
the new crater was formed four months ago. He 
did give us a fine view, however, of the bay and its 
circumjacent towns, and it was worth something to 
stand round the edge of the crater and see the huge 
masses of earth crack off almost under our very feet, 
and go rumbling and thundering down into the bot- 
tomless pit, that sent up its sulphurous fumes into 
our faces, and flashed occasionally up from its black 
depths a demon smile of flame, that absolutely star- 
tled us, and suggested the idea of very unpleasant 
company nearer than was quite agreeable to contem- 
plate, standing on such treacherous foundations. I 
thought of the passage of Scripture about the 
wicked, " Their feet shall slide in due time," and 



EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 213 

thenceforth gave the crater a wide berth. We did 
some rather " tall walking " in our descent. A long 
Yankee that accompanied us made twelve steps, I 
think, from top to bottom. 

Herculaneum is a very 'damp cellar of long narrow 
passages, where you see occasionally fragments of 
ancient brick walls, and fall down the slippery steps 
of the old theatre. But Pompeii does n't disappoint 
you at all. You see precisely what you expect, one 
half a city buried fifteen feet deep, with orchards, 
gardens, and vineyards flourishing over it, and the 
other half, from which this earthen cover has been 
lifted, lying roofless and desolate, like a sacked and 
captured town. The resemblance to Sebastopol 
struck me at every step. Widen the streets a little, 
and sprinkle a thousand tons of cannon balls over it, 
and you would need stop and think, to say which 
was which. One walks dreamily and in a moral- 
izing mood about old Pompeii and always wants to 
come again. 

The only truly beautiful ruins, however, anywhere 
in the vicinity of Naples, are, as everybody knows or 
ought to know, (if they have ever read the infallible, 
indispensable, and interminable Murray,) at Paestum, 
fifty miles down the coast. Our getting there was a 
specimen of Italian travelling of which I would like 



214 mr. DUNisr Browne's 

to give you a sketch, but the time which has since 
elapsed has dimmed the vividness of the impressions. 
I recollect that it rained hard all the time, that we 
came at last to a river so rapid and swollen that the 
large ferry-boat could not cross with our carriage, and 
we were told that we must turn back. That word 
" must " not being very palatable to a party of the 
"free and enlightened" we declared we wouldn't go 
back, and left our guide, who was afraid to cross, to 
take care of our team, while we chartered a skiff half 
full of water and bare-legged boatmen, crossed the 
stream in safety, mustered up bad Italian enough 
to make a bargain with some bad Italians on the 
other side, engaged another carriage and saw Paes- 
tum at last, rain and rivers to the contrary notwith- 
standing. Returned to Naples triumphant, but 
dreadfully wet; took a bath, (rather an unnecessary 
operation you may say,) and such a dinner as I wish 
you had been at the Cafe Europa to share with us. 

The next day, not feeling exactly in the mood for 
ordinary sight-seeing, we went to see the grand mira- 
cle, whose annual recurrence secures the prosperity 
of the city. The blood of St. Januarius, the patron 
of Naples, dried and clotted on to the inner surface 
of two little bottles, once a year, in answer to the 
prayers of the faithful, becomes liquid and flows as 



EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 215 

readily as if freshly drawn. The miracle was suc- 
cessful, this year, to the eyes of all good Catholics, 
but for myself, not having the eye of faith, I couldn't 
see that any change had been effected. If those who 
have the most interest in such things are satisfied, 
however, we outsiders need n't find any fault. But 
bssides one or two miracles, I saw also, at Naples 
and in some of the towns in its vicinity, a great 
many other rare and curiQus things, fragments of 
nearly all the Apostles, the whole of several of the 
early martyrs, and even duplicate heads of St. An- 
drew, several teeth of the Virgin Mary and three 
hairs (all of different colors) from her head, pieces of 
the true cross, parts of the crown of thorns, etc., 
etc. 

The museums of Naples are among the things 
that must be seen and that can't be described. 
Among the acres of bad pictures, nearly the only 
one that I recollect is Domenichino's " Guardian 
Angel" extending his wings over a little confiding 
child, (Innocence,) to guard against the Evil Spirit 
who is creeping near, with malice in his eye and a 
pitchfork in his hand, to attack the little fellow. 
Among the sculptures the group of the Farnese Bull 
is the most magnificent marble story I have ever 



216 mr. dunn browne's 

read. The Herculaneum and Pompeii objects are 
more interesting than can be believed without seeing, 
but the kitchen utensils are not so valuable as I had 
supposed, most of the copper kettles and basins hav- 
ing holes worn through the bottom. 



EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 217 



CHAPTER XL.VIII- 

IN A VETTURA. 

His Lordship, the very Reverend Bishop of Cork, 
two young Irish priests with an O at the beginning 
of their names, one rather fast young gentleman 
from Hartford who delights in coming out in a white 
suit on all the sunshiny days, another somewhat 
staid young American from North Carolina who re- 
fuses to walk with the above-mentioned gentleman 
in white, on account of the attention which his sin- 
gularity of dress attracts, and your correspondent, 
started from Naples early on the morning of Tues- 
day, May 13th, to perform the journey to Rome in a 
Vettura, a rather heavy, awkwardly made coach, 
with seats for four inside and two in the coupe in 
front. His Reverence and your humble servant 
being the extremes of the party as regards size, our 
Vetturino, who has an Italian eye to the fitness and 
harmony of things, very naturally requested us to 
occupy a seat together ; and certainly if three hun- 



218 mr. dunn browne's 

dred weight of bishop can ever be agreeable on the 
same seat in a hot carriage in June, this was one of 
the instances. He is as learned and well informed 
and courteous as he is large, endured all the hard- 
ships of the trip with exemplary cheerfulness, fasted 
strictly one whole day in the dust and heat, accord- 
ing to the rules of his church, and on the whole he 
and his two young companions are the most liberal 
Catholic priests I have yet met with. We discussed 
some of the points of difference with the utmost free- 
dom, especially in reference to the unrestricted circu- 
lation of the Scriptures among the people, a very 
dangerous liberty according to their reverences, 
whose evil effects are especially apparent in the 
United States, in the great variety of perverse and 
conflicting sects who are perpetually disputing over 
that Bible which is thus injudiciously put into their 
hands, to become only a weapon of controversy. It 
was also gently hinted that by our own erroneous 
interpretation of some passages quoted in the course 
of the conversation we furnished an argument on 
their side of the question. But we refused to ac- 
knowledge the force of that argument, considering 
that the interpretation of three of the u free and en- 
lightened " is quite as valuable any day as that of 
three Irishmen. In other matters we differed very 



EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 219 

little, save, perhaps, in regard to the Pope's domin- 
ions being the very best governed portion of the 
world. Our friends in black robes promised to obtain 
an audience with His Holiness for us, if we wished, 
but learning that a court-dress would be necessary, 
(or if not a court-dress at least a dress that not one 
of us had on our return from the East,) and having 
been brought up from our infancy to consider kissing 
the Pope's toe as an indispensable part of the cere- 
mony, we declined the honor. 

As we approached the Eternal City the people 
grew better looking, and I think I have never seen 
a finer, more robust and noble-looking race than the 
sunburned peasant men and especially peasant wo- 
men in some of the districts between Naples and 
Rome. These latter, (i. e. the women,) usually wear 
a silver bodkin nearly a foot in length, thrust through 
the mass of raven locks which is tumbled up rather 
promiscuously at the back of their heads. I can only 
conjecture whether this is a mere matter of ornament, 
or of defence, or to show that they are ready to imi- 
tate the example of the great Lucretia of old, at a 
moment's warning, without having to hunt up a 
dagger. All the peasant girls wear rather costly 
neck ornaments of gold or coral, and those who can 
afford it wear also shoes, but these latter are a rare 
luxury, and as for stockings I doubt if I saw on an 



220 mr. dunn browne's 

average a pair in a day's ride. Oar trip occupied 
three days, all which I greatly enjoyed except the 
meal hours and the nights. The reason for this im- 
portant exception might be given, but I dare not 
trust my feelings to speak on the subject as yet. 
Believe me, there are things in Italian travelling which 
are not down in the books. If a person has the 
temper of an angel, the purse of a nabob, the stom- 
ach of an ostrich, the skin of a rhinoceros, is not 
pressed for time and has not the sense of smell, I see 
no reason why he should not enjoy a leisurely tour 
over the whole of this most beautiful land. But as 
your humble servant is endowed only with the first 
of the above-mentioned qualifications, the agreeable 
reminiscences are slightly mingled with others. 
Still since the great works of art which Napoleon 
very sensibly and justifiably carried away to a more 
comfortable country, have been brought back, why 
there is no use talking. One must come to Italy 
through all ingenious obstacles wiiich the inhabitants 
and the governments have devised to render him un- 
comfortable. In obedience to this necessity, there- 
fore, this present epistle dates itself from Rome, 
from which place at least a hundred other epistles 
would need to emanate, to express all Mr. B.'s im- 
pressions upon the art, architecture, and ruins, but 
there is a possibility that he may abridge a little. 



EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 221 



CHAPTER X L I X. 

HERETICAL VIEWS ON THE SUBJECT OF RUINS. 

All the ruins of Rome, with the exception of two 
or three arches and stray columns in the vicinity of 
the Forum, and perhaps also the Pantheon, besides 
the tremendous, magnificent exception of the Colise- 
um, aren't worth an old brick-kiln, and if they were 
not in Rome and people were not so desperately 
afraid of being convicted of a want of taste, this 
undoubted fact would be more generally acknowl- 
edged. But with this fear before their eyes and sev- 
eral books full of printed admiration under their 
arms, people go stumbling about old shapeless 
masses of tottering brickwork with a few weeds 
growing out of the clefts, down into damp vaults 
covered with green slime over, under, and around 
what might be the ruins of a decayed machine-shop 
or a disused railway station, and merely because 
these crumbling heaps of building material are dig- 
nified with the names " Hadrian's Villa," " Baths of 



222 MR. DUNN BROWNE'S 

Titus," " Palace of the Cassars," etc., not one dare 
whisper to his neighbor his real thoughts, but all vie 
with each other in hypocritical rhapsodies and pretty- 
interjections; nothing but ecstacies and exclamation- 
points from beginning to end ; and then go home 
with torn boots and soiled dresses and a bad cold, a 
judgment no doubt for their disingenuousness and 
lack of moral courage. Of all humbugs deliver me 
from these tiresome, trumpery, old, brick and stucco 
humbugs of ancient ruins. 

There is enough in Rome that is beautiful, in her 
exhaustless treasures of art and of architecture too, 
in the unrivalled glories of St. Peter's and many 
other living buildings, and in a few mutilated frag- 
ments of her departed grandeur, without educating 
one's reluctant taste into an admiration of things, 
that are not admirable, just because they are old and 
moss-covered and weed-grown. There is enough 
that is beautiful and interesting and wonderful to 
see in Rome and it takes you a long time to see it. 
If there happens to be a masterpiece of painting in 
any church in the city, it is morally certain to have 
a green curtain over it, (the withdrawing of which is 
a perquisite of the sexton,) and it is equally certain 
to be just the commencement of service when you 
arrive, so that it is impossible for you to see it and 



EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 223 

you must come again. I have spent all my leisure 
time for a fortnight in going to the church of St. 
Augustine to see Raphael's Fresco of Isaiah, pur- 
posely choosing different and out of the way hours 
so as to avoid service. But it is of no use. The 
old organ is always going as if it had never a stop 
to it, the monotonous drone of the priests perpetually 
salutes me at my entrance. I know every ring of 
that everlasting old faded green curtain, but can 
never prevail upon the solemn-visaged sacristan to 
withdraw it, and have never had a glimpse of the 
Prophet underneath. 

But if it takes considerable time to finish up the 
sight-seeing of the Eternal City, you are easily rec- 
onciled to the slowness of the process, for a more 
comfortable place to live in would be hard to find. 
Quarters fit for a prince, not beyond the purse of 
the poorest traveller, all the necessaries of life cheap 
and abundant, the noblest works of art, the very 
most beautiful things in the whole world, to be seen 
every day, the finest of languages uttered by the 
most melodious of voices ever within hearing, and 
the most select society of your own nation, (what- 
ever that nation happens to be,) accessible to you, 
certainly I know many more disagreeable places to 
be detained in than Rome. 



224 ME. DUNN BROWNE'S 

Let us see, what have we done to-day ? A rather 
miscellaneous day's work I think. First, the church 
of the Capuchins, where we saw the famous " Mi- 
chael, the Archangel, crushing Satan," of Guido, 
and then went down into the cellar-cemetery of the 
monks, where their bones are piled up in regular 
order on shelves and labelled, occupying a series of 
rooms extending under the whole church. I asked 
the young friar who accompanied us if he too would 
get in there at last. He smiled faintly, and echoed 
back the syllables " at last." Then we went to the 
Spada Palace and saw the statue of Pompey, at 
whose base " great Csesar fell " and the Colonna 
Palace, where the gallery is much finer than any 
of the pictures in it, where we noticed a painting 
of " Christ preaching to the spirits in prison," in 
which a woman was represented with a lapdog in 
her arm. So, according to that artist, one doesn't 
have to leave all his possessions behind him when 
he goes out of this world. And then we rode out 
of the city and went into the Catacombs and into 
the city again and called at Crawford's studio, ad- 
mired his spirited group, "America," of which we 
saw only casts, ♦ as the originals have departed to 
adorn the Capitol at Washington, also two figures of 
the unfinished Richmond monument, Patrick Henry 



EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 225 

and Thomas Jefferson, both excellent. Last of all we 
went to St. Peter's to hear the music at Vespers, 
and wander about in the solemn twilight amidst the 
arches and under the dome of that grandest of 
temples " made with hands." I said last of all, but 
no, the last and perhaps the best of all was the 
Coliseum by moonlight, the huge relic of Rome's 
greatness and her barbarism, silent now, but once 
resounding with the shouts of one hundred and fifty 
thousand human monsters applauding the brute 
monsters who tore one another or helpless Christians, 
perhaps, on the bloody arena. Now stands the cross 
in. the centre of that arena where thousands of its 
followers have fallen martyrs to their faith. 

About like this is our usual day's work in Rome. 
One great Festival has occurred during our stay, 
Corpus Christi, when the pope and all the cardi- 
nals and bishops arrayed in gold and scarlet and 
fine linen, and troops of barefooted friars equally 
proud in their coarse woollen frock and hempen 
girdle, and hundreds of portly priests in robes of 
black, with book and candle, walked in stately pro- 
cession round the porticos in front of St. Peters, and 
thousands upon thousands, crowds upon crowds, 
acres upon acres of people poured into that vast 
building to receive the pope's benediction. Then 

15 



226 mr. dunn browne's 

first did I begin to get some idea of the size of that 
wonderful structure, when I saw those throngs that 
filled the streets of a great city, all flowing as it 
were rivers into that great sea, and found that there 
was still room, that there were great vacant spaces, 
that I could walk freely every where, and could find 
no jostling or interference or any appearance of a 
crowd in any part. 

The pope himself was borne on men's shoulders, 
kneeling on a cushion before a little table on which 
stood a crucifix of gold, his hands clasped as if in 
prayer. He is a good and venerable looking man, 
and an ornament to any procession. 



EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 227 



CHAPTER L. 



FLORENCE, THE BEAUTIFUL. 



If you come to Florence to stop more than a few 
days, don't go to a stupid hotel and pay two dollars 
a day, but go right to housekeeping, and have all 
the fun of a home of your own, besides saving a 
dollar a day to buy mosaics for your female relatives. 
Why, here are five of us who occupy a suite of apart- 
ments looking forth upon the Arno, on the aristo- 
cratic first floor, with four front windows and a 
balcony, two parlors, a dining saloon, each of us a 
bedroom, one or two bath-rooms and a kitchen 
which we don't occupy, all furnished in the most 
costly and tasteful manner, with a grand piano and 
plenty of rosewood and damask all about us, and 
for the whole, including the service, (which is per- 
formed by a rather tidy young woman with one 
eye, who limps a little,) we pay a quarter of a dollar 
each per day. Then for breakfast we drop into the 
magnificent cafe* Doney, the very best coffee-house 



228 MR. DUNN BROWNE'S 

in the whole world, and have the most delightful 
coffee or chocolate and rolls and eggs and a bit of 
steak, and you will hardly be able to order so extrava- 
gant a breakfast as to cost more than twelve or fif- 
teen cents, and eight will commonly be enough. 
From three to five o'clock, according to circum- 
stances, we dine, either at a restaurant or in our own 
rooms, and have an abundant dinner of three or 
four courses for less than fifty cents, so you can have 
a cup of tea in the evening and an ice when it is 
warm and yet come easily within a dollar a day. 

Florence is another of those pleasant places where 
one wishes to stay weeks and months, and enjoy 
the pleasant climate, and ride and drive about the 
beautiful suburbs, and lounge frequently and leisurely 
into the magnificent galleries of art, and take time 
to get thoroughly acquainted with the " Venus de 
Medici " and Guercino's " Sybil," and the hundred 
other masterpieces that adorn the " Tribune" of the 
" Ufficii," and the Pitti Palace. Beautiful things 
and beautiful places ought to be looked at leisurely 
and many times, that they may feed our taste, 
make our sense of the beautiful grow within us and 
do us that good they are intended to do. 

We have enjoyed our visits to the artist's studios 
very much indeed. Powers' " America " is one of 



EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 229 

the finest statues in the world of modern art, and 
has more life and spirit, and glory about it, than a 
dozen Greek slaves and Eves. Mr. Hart, from Ken- 
tucky, has a curious machine to take measurements 
for busts and copies, which he says, saves about 
two thirds the labor, and increases the accuracy, 
whose method of operating he showed to us, nearly 
putting out our eyes in the process, with the needles 
that are used for taking the "points." He has an 
excellent bust of Mr. Fillmore, made in this way 
in a few days, from one or two sittings. I was very 
much interested in seeing an unfinished statue in 
one of the workshops, where a most lovely female 
head, all perfect and complete, was rising, so to 
speak, out of a rough, shapeless block of marble, 
the ideal of the artist effecting its escape from 
its hard prison of stone. 

A very pretty institution about Florence is the 
flower girls, who go about the streets every morn- 
ing, and into the cafes where you are at breakfast, 
giving you a cheerful "good morning" and a sweet 
nosegay of fragrant flowers. There is n't any bar- 
gain and sale about the thing. You slip a piece of 
money occasionally into her hand as your liberality 
prompts you, (I never saw one of them ask for 
money,) and she supplies you regularly, and if your 



230 mr. dunn Browne's 

gifts are generous, will occasionally bring you a 
regular beauty of a bouquet for your " inamorata." 

There is a faded, old-fashioned, passed-away 
splendor about the old ducal palace and the ca- 
thedral with its attendant buildings in Florence, 
as well as those of Pisa which is indescribably 
affecting. You somehow feel tenderly towards 
them, walk softly over the crumbling pavements, 
speak low under the venerable arches, that you may 
not disturb the sleeping echoes, you are shocked 
to hear conceited visitors make flippant, disparag- 
ing remarks about them, you would as soon think 
of criticizing your grandmother's shroud at her 
funeral, you dislike even to read books of descrip- 
tion of them, it seems an irreverent curiosity to 
examine too minutely into their details, but you 
love to walk in and around them and meditate, 
you feel kindly in that atmosphere, indisposed to 
fret and grumble, and really get into a more ami- 
able frame of mind, the longer you remain in 
their presence, or write about them or even read 
of them. Don't you ? The interior of the vast 
old cathedral at Florence, is so severe in its sim- 
plicity and entire freedom from ornament, that you 
would hardly think yourself in a Roman Catholic 
fane, but rather in a huge puritan meeting-house. 



EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 231 



CHAPTER LI. 

THE BIRTH-PLACE OF COLUMBUS. 

[Mr. B. falls into financial difficulties, and attempts to go third 
class in a Sardinian steamboat.] 

Scene — Steamer Office. 

Mr. B., (in a prompt business way,) " One ticket 
third class to Genoa." Agent, (after a scrutinizing 
glance at the exterior of Mr. B.,) " Can't be done, sir." 
Mr. B., (expostulatingly,) " What do you mean, sir ? 
Why do you advertise third class tickets and then 
refuse to sell them ? " Agent, (explanatorily,) 
" We do sell them, sir, but you are not the sort of a 
person to go third class." Mr. B., (indignantly,) 
" Can't I judge for myself what passage to take ? " 
Agent, (blandly,) " Not at all, we sell third class tick- 
ets only to sailors and servants." Mr. B., " Well, 
then, I am a servant." Agent, (a little taken aback,) 
" What is the name of your master ? Does he go on 
the same boat ? " Mr. B., " My master at present is 
Necessity. I rather think he goes along with me." 



232 mr. dunn Browne's 

Agent, (perceiving the joke,) "Monsieur Necessity is 
not booked for this trip, and the servant must always 
accompany his master, so you can't go in that capac- 
ity you see." Mr. B., finding that steamboat com- 
panies have no bowels, reluctantly drags out his 
last Napoleon from the shrunken recesses of his ex- 
hausted purse, pays for a second class ticket, and 
wonders how much of a breakfast he can get in 
Genoa for the franc and a half change he receives. 

Genoa is a city of bookbinders and the very para- 
dise of bill-stickers. There is here no defence against 
paste. Every wall, house, palace, and shop is cov- 
ered with notices, advertisements, all sorts of hand- 
bills. The palaces of this " city of palaces " are 
shams mostly, nothing but an imposing front and 
magnificent staircase. Recollecting that there ought 
to be some autograph letters of Columbus to be seen 
somewhere in Genoa, proceeded to make inquiries 
w T hich became at last rather extensive and resulted 
in the statistical facts, that there are probably in all 
five Genoese who have heard of Christopher Colum- 
bus, one of whom is the proprietor of the " Hotel of 
the Great Columbus," and another of the " Cafe Co- 
lumbus ; " that three persons in the city have heard 
of the letters and assigned to me three distinct 
places of deposit for them, all which I visited inef- 



EXPERIENCES IN" FOREIGN PARTS. 233 

fectually, but did at last find them in a palace where 
the porter had twice sent me away with the most 
strenuous denial of their existence. They are in 
Spanish, very legible, and have recently been placed 
under glass, because a gentleman from Boston tore 
off and carried away a corner of one of them. 
Here I ought to mention the most remarkable and 
astonishing incident that ever'occurred in the whole 
range of my experience. The custodian- of those let- 
ters deliberately and decisively refused the two francs 
fee I offered him for showing them to me ! And he 
manifested no other evidence of derangement either. 
The people of Genoa seem the busiest of all races? 
especially in contrast with the lazy Italians and 
Turks whom we have been accustomed to see for 
the last few months. They make velvets and silk 
goods, oceans of books, vast quantities of cabinet 
furniture, and iron bedsteads enough for all the 
world to sleep upon, as well as enough to keep all 
the world awake with the clatter of making them. 
The women are not so universally black-eyed as in 
the rest of Italy, dress somewhat plainly, but wear 
a very neat and graceful headdress consisting of a 
simple breadth of white lace thrown over the head 
and falling about the shoulders. 



234 MR. DUNN BROWNE'S 

P. S. — Mr. B. has relieved himself from the pecu- 
niary difficulties above referred to, after the manner 
of most of the great European Powers, by negotiat- 
ing a loan. 



EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 235 



CHAPTER LI I. 



THE NIGHT DILIGENCE. 



Probably you have all of you a more or less definite 
idea of the meaning of the word "frontier," but if 
you wish to go into all its niceties, to get a realizing 
sense of its length, breadth, and depth, you must 
come to Italy. Here is the Italian for " Crossing- a 
Frontier" 

The Diligence which left Turin (I should say No- 
vara, which is connected with Turin by railway,) at 
nine, P. M., is rolling sluggishly along over the mac- 
adamized road. The six inside passengers, whereof 
your correspondent is (a corner) one, are coiled up in 
various uncomfortable positions, trying to unite to- 
gether little broken naps into a connected sleep. A 
cloud of pulverized stone is depositing itself in gray 
strata over the persons of the slumbering travellers, 
settling in their hair and whiskers, filling up the 
wrinkles, drifting into the corners of the eyes and 
mouth, titillating the nasal passages, gradually chok- 



236 MR. DUNN BROWNE'S 

ing Dp the air-vessels in the lungs, and diffusing it- 
self generally along with the atmosphere. Suddenly, 
all these interesting processes are suspended by the 
coach's stopping in front of a low, black building, 
recognizable at once by an old traveller as a custom- 
house. The everlasting policeman calls for the ever- 
lasting passports, and the conductor requests the pas- 
sengers to descend, and descend we accordingly do, 
coughing, spitting, and choking with the avalanches 
of dust which take that opportunity to descend also 
from our coats and hats. Ladders are placed against 
the sides of the huge diligence, porters mount and 
bring down all our sacks, trunks, portmanteaus, and 
bandboxes, not forgetting to ask a " buono mano," 
which is the Italian for " backsheesh," from each one 
of us for the operation. Then the baggage all goes 
into a large room, on one side of a great bench, and 
we on the other, every thing is unlocked, rummaged, 
re-locked and packed again on the top of the Dili- 
gence, the porters not forgetting to ask you for 
another " buono mano " for putting it up again. 
Then we are marched off in Indian file to the pass- 
port room, and one by one, answering to our names, 
(dreadfully mispronounced,) receive back the docu- 
ments with the small charge of four francs attached 
to each. " For what?" ask we. " Oh, for the per- 



EXPERIENCES IN EOEEIGN PARTS. 237 

mission to leave Sardinia, the vise of the Minister of 
Foreign Affairs." " Ah, the Minister of Foreign Af- 
fairs lives here in this little frontier town, does he, 
and sits up till one o'clock at night to attend to our 
passes? " " No, he lives at Turin, but has an agent 
here." " All right, happy to pay any reasonable 
amount for the privilege of leaving your blessed coun- 
try," exclaimed my friend in the opposite corner, who 
wasn't apt to be in a very amiable frame of mind 
when broken of his rest, and we rolled on in a cloud 
of entirely new dust, evincing by its taste a totally 
different geological formation of the country we were, 
entering from that we nad just left. 

But scarcely had the grumblings of my irritable 
friend ceased, as his head subsided again into the 
dusty cushions, when, lo ! the coach draws up for the 
second time before a long, low building, the very 
counterpart of the other, and the demand for pass- 
ports is renewed by a policeman in a dress of differ- 
ent and still uglier pattern. " What," exclaimed my 
friend, starting to his feet in a theatrical manner, 
" must I go over this confounded performance again, 
in my dreams ? " Having enlightened him as to the 
precise state of the case, and succeeded at last in 
fully waking him, we descended, and composedly 
went through the examination of selves, passes, and 



238 ME. DUNN BEOWNE'S 

baggage for entering Austrian Lombardy, in the 
same manner as we had already done for leaving 
Sardinian Piedmont. When the officer asked me if 
I had any thing subject to duty among my effects, I 
showed him the little carpet bag weighing eight 
pounds which had formed my only " impedimenta " 
for six months, and told him I really didn't know 
whether shirts were dutiable in the Austrian domin- 
ions or not, but there were three which had been ex- 
amined thirteen times within a few weeks, and he 
was welcome to inspect them again. He smiled as 
he told me I need n't trouble myself to unlock, and 
passed on. 

Now this little sketch of frontier experience is 
only a simple, unexaggerated, every-day incident of 
travel in Italy, — examination to go out of and to go 
into every separate state, if it isn't larger than an Il- 
linois corn field. And the trouble and expense incur- 
red in the capitals in the way of vise's and police ex- 
penses is far greater than at the frontiers. Already 
has my poor passport cost me twenty-five dollars in 
six weeks' Italian experience, a sum considerably 
greater than I have yet contributed in taxes to my 
own government. But perhaps we ought not to 
grudge to these poverty-stricken Italian governments 
one of their chief sources of revenue. 



EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 239 



CHAPTER LI II. 

ON FOOT AMONG THE ALPS. 

Sivitzerland, July, 1856. 
You may think this is so small and insignificant 
a country that the above is quite a definite location 
for the date of a letter, but after walking over its 
hills and mountains a couple of weeks, as I have 
done, you would change your mind, and conclude 
that Switzerland is a land of respectable size after 
all. Indeed, my only reason for not being more 
precise in dating is that I have really forgotten 
exactly where I am when inditing this epistle, so 
long a time has since elapsed, for though I am ap- 
parently here and now, yet as a matter of fact I 
am away down in Holland, and in the latter part 
of next week. Hoping that this somewhat meta- 
physical explanation may be perfectly satisfactory, 
I proceed to remark that the reason why Switzer- 
land occupies no larger space on the map, is prob- 
ably the same which led the Scotchman to assert 



240 mr. dunn browne's 

that his own country was larger than England, if 
it were only flattened out. This country is so folded 
and wrinkled up like the hide of a rhinoceros that, 
of course, it does n't get its rights among the family 
of nations. I hope that when the Great Powers 
" revise the map of Europe," as they have so often 
threatened to do of late, they will bear this in mind, 
and not crowd Switzerland into a mere little red 
daub between great yellow France and blue Austria, 
as has hitherto been done. 

The experiences of your correspondent amidst 
the Alps have not been very remarkable, save that, 
of course, every clay he has walked it has rained 
hard, and every day he has proceeded by diligence 
it hasn't rained at all, but been quite hot and dusty. 
The "order of our going," during our recent pedes- 
trian excursion of ten or twelve days, over the .prin- 
cipal mountain passes, has been something on this 
wise. First advances our forlorn hope, the Professor, 
with enthusiasm in his eye, and a stick cut from the 
top of Parnassus in his hand, (which stick he is 
perpetually dropping and picking up,) with unflag- 
ging step, and unfailing cheerfulness, with an eye for 
every picturesque view, an ear for each echo of the 
Alpine horn, and a handful of coppers for every 
beggar that accosts him. Deeming it his duty to be 



EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 241 

romantic, at least this once in his life, he conscien- 
tiously goes into ecstacies over every glacier, scru- 
pulously makes the appropriate quotations at the sub- 
lime points of view, hears the roar of an avalanche 
in every thunder crash, looks sharp for a chamois on 
each projecting crag, and sees a William Tell in 
every mountain shepherd boy. 

Next, with alert step and beaming countenance, 
with a quotation from Byron or a scrap of song 
on his lips, bearing a huge Alpenstock, to which he 
pertinaciously clings under some insane notion that 
the heavy thing assists him in climbing, comes our 
youthful Richard. He sports an unexceptionable 
moustache, is our oracle on all matters of dress, and 
gives very liberally to the little maidens who lie in 
wait for us at every corner to sing the " Ranz des 
vaches." He has a habit of occasionally indulging 
in a "quiet laugh," which can be easily heard at a dis- 
tance of three miles, and fully intends to purchase an 
umbrella if the rain does n't cease within a fortnight. 

Last of all, under a slouched hat which the Pro- 
fessor has at last, after repeated controversy, ac- 
knowledged to be a worse looking tile than his own, 
appears your veritable historian, bringing up the 
rear with plodding steps, caring little for the pelting 
of the rain upon his own person, but watching as a 

16 



242 mr. dunn browne's 

mother for an infant over the safety of a small packet 
of provisions which he refuses to intrust to any- 
other care, stopping occasionally to pluck a dande- 
lion, (of which he has an extensive collection gathered 
in various quarters of the world,) delighting at times 
in getting before his companions by a short cut, so 
as to sit down quietly on a stone, and enjoy their 
astonishment on coming up, rejoicing especially to 
get to the end of the day's journey, and, if the 
truth must be told, not quite able to perceive the 
amusement of walking thirty miles a day in the 
rain. 

The Professor is classical, Richard is poetical, and 
Mr. Browne is decidedly practical. When we pass 
along the base of a perpendicular Alpine peak of 
granite, Richard calls it a cloud-capped giant, the 
Professor terms it one of nature's grand old Gothic 
cathedrals, — while to Mr. Browne's matter-of-fact 
eyes it is just a great stone mountain. 



EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 243 



CHAPTER LIV. 

INDEPENDENCE AMONG THE CLOUDS. 

Summit of Rigi, July 4, 1856. 

Now mind, I don't wish to be understood at all 
as attempting to disparage clouds, in a general way. 
They are exceedingly poetical, no doubt, floating in 
the blue ether over our heads, of a summer's day, 
or in a storm, forming the dark background for the 
lightning's fiery pictures. They are also not only 
ornamental but useful occasionally, in shielding us 
from the burning rays of the sun, hot days, and on 
rainy days, in promoting the growth of vegetables, 
as well as the sale of umbrellas. 

But when you come up into the region of clouds, 
and can't see, feel, or taste any thing but cloud ; 
when you are soaked, drenched, completely satu- 
rated with cloud ; are compelled to eat cloud, drink 
cloud, breathe cloud ; thick cloud shutting off all 
prospect from your eyes and all hope from your 
heart ; cold cloud chilling the very marrow of your 



244 mr. dunk - browne's 

bones, and standing in clammy drops on your brow; 
intrusive cloud that will not be shut out of your 
room by double windows, which forms a foggy halo 
round your candle, hangs a pall-like curtain about 
your bed, and piles itself in heavy folds upon you as 
you sleep, inspiring nightmare, unpleasant dreams 
of drowning, suffocation, boa-constrictors — ugh! I 
assure you, the enchantment of clouds diminishes in- 
versely as the square of the distance, and an inti- 
mate acquaintance with them destroys all poetry. 
Clouds, in short, like candies, gingerbread, kisses, 
courtship, and all other luxuries, mustn't be made 
too common. 

On the whole, it must be confessed this is not a 
favorable morning for ascending an Alpine moun- 
tain to get a view. There is not that variety and 
extent of prospect sometimes spoken of by travel- 
lers. My whole visible horizon at present com- 
prises a plat of ground three rods in diameter, 
one forlorn cow, three of the meekest of sheep, 
and several dripping, low-spirited hens. Indeed, 
" not to put too fine a point upon it," this climbing 
the Eigi to spend the Fourth of July, is a humbug, 
— a weary, moist, up-hill, tiresome, puffing, perspir- 
ing, chilly, foggy humbug ; to be surpassed only by 
that [national independence we this day celebrate, 



EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 245 

which is the most stupendous and deplorable hum- 
bug on the face of the earth if we are to judge by 
the goings on in Washington and in Kansas for the 
last twelvemonth. I cannot help thinking that the 
clouds and darkness which envelop us here on this 
Alpine summit, as we forlornly celebrate our nation's 
birthday, are a fitting emblem of the present condition 
and future prospects of our beloved country. We 
discern one gleam of light, however, in the great 
republican movement. now happily inaugurated, and 
send up a united shout for "Freedom and Fremont," 
which quite astonishes the inhabitants of these be- 
nighted regions, and calls forth a responsive crow 
from the undismayed chanticleer of the establish- 
ment. 

We have just been examining by (means of an 
excellent map) the magnificent panorama (in) visi- 
ble from the summit of Rigi, and surely the most 
vivid imagination can hardly picture to itself any 
thing at all approaching the glorious reality. Far 
in the distance the lofty peaks of the Bernese Alps, 
thrusting their heads up through their covering of 
snow, like naughty giants that won't stay buried, 
• but must be continually poking their noses out of 
their windingsheet; near at hand the peaceful lakes 
of Lucerne and Zug, slumbering below us, like gen- 



246 me. dunn browne's 

tie maidens taking their rest, with a drapery of green 
forests wrapped gracefully about them, and white 
villages glittering like gems upon their breast; north, 
east, and west, good old Mother Earth smiling upon 
us, clothed in her rich gingham of cultivated fields, 
with the rivers Reuss and Aar flowing like silver rib- 
bons over her ample bosom, and doubling themselves 
into more curious knots and bows than ever blessed 
the dreams of Parisian milliner; to the south-west 
the white veiled novice Jungfrau, lifting her head in 
virgin purity towards heaven as it were in worship ; 
while over against her, to the north-west, grim Pila- 
tus, with a wreath of thunderclouds round his brow T , 
frowns upon the edifying spectacle. Dear me! I 
am not at all certain I could have written you so 
poetical a description if it were not for the clouds 
and mists that have concealed the reality from my 
view. Yours, dimly. 



EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 247 



CHAPTER LV. 



DOWN THE RHINE. 



Everybody goes down the Rhine, and therefore, 
of course, I did. Everybody has written a descrip- 
tion of it, and therefore, of course, I shall not. An 
equally good reason in both cases, though the con- 
clusions arrived at are a little contradictory. Be- 
cause, for instance, everybody wears coats, therefore 
you and I must needs do the same, but if everybody 
were becoming tailors that would not be a good 
reason for our taking to the goose ; on the contrary, 
we should be geese if we did. Because everybody 
reads the Republican is a sufficient reason (even if 
there were not others still better) for my reading it, 
but if everybody should take to writing for it, I 
should stop. 

The Rhine is a very large river, (although it is not 
in America,) with its scenery generally flat and un- 
interesting, bnt about one hundred miles of it, from 
Rudesheim to Bonn is just as picturesque and beau- 



248 MR. DUNN BROWNE'S 

tiful as it has been, or can be described to be ; an 
ever varying succession of the wildest ravines, the 
raggedest cliffs, the most verdant meadows, the neat- 
est vineyards, the most delightful old brigand castles, 
mountains, villages, churches, ruins, echoes, palaces, 
forests, historical associations, fairy legends, ghosts, 
giants, grottos, and caverns ; nothing but poetry, 
chivalry, romance, and enchantment, all which our 
party entered into with the greatest zest, seated on 
the deck of our steamer, wrapped in all the overcoats, 
shawls, and blankets we could muster; for this month 
of July here in Europe has been so much like a 
New England March, that you couldn't tell the two 
apart if you saw them side by side, unless it were 
by an occasional patch of snow-bank on the back of 
the latter. The Professor rubbed his hands together, 
sometimes with the cold, and sometimes with enthu- 
siasm, as a sudden turn in the river unfolded a par- 
ticularly glorious scene before our eyes. "Our 
Richard" shivered, now with emotion at the recital 
of some dark legend connected with a ruined tower 
we were passing, and now from the effects of the 
blast which swept up against us from the north. As 
to the third individual in that trio of worthies, (ex- 
cuse my not being more definite ; " modesty," etc.,) 
it would have done your heart good to see with what 



EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 249 

bravery and constancy he clung to his Murray 
through rain and cold, with an eye on either bank to 
catch every tower and ruin and castle as we glided 
by, and a finger to check off the same on the page 
of the infallible red-covered handbook. Ah who so 
happy as he when his task was over, and we were 
relieved from our watch on deck by the announce- 
ment of the veracious Murray that the scenery below 
Bonn was tame and uninteresting. 

And here I think I may be allowed an apostrophe, 
a figure of speech, in which you must acknowledge, 
dear reader, I don't often indulge. Oh, thou pre- 
cious companion of continental travellers, indispen- 
sable Murray ! Who can estimate the blessings 
which thy score of ponderous volumes (at the small 
charge of ten and sixpence each) have inflicted on 
tourists of every age, sex, and condition ? How 
comfortable, on all occasions, amidst the works of 
nature and of art, before a cascade or a cartoon, to 
know exactly when to admire, and how much to ad- 
mire, what to praise and what to criticize, to have 
your emotions measured out to you in appropriate 
doses, your canons of criticism always ready charged 
under your arm, to be never in danger of making mis- 
takes in praising or sneering at the wrong thing, to 
have your whole tour properly punctuated for you, the 



250 MR. DUNN BROWNE'S 

exclamation points and notes of admiration thrown in 
correctly. Ah me! What a pity that the diminutive 
size of my carpet-bag has prevented me from carrying 
this whole red-covered library around with me! I 
am afraid I have admired many things at which I 
ought to have turned up my nose in disgust, and found 
fault with other things which were faultless, thus 
misleading and perverting the taste of others in 
these poor letters of mine, which were intended solely 
for their instruction and improvement. 

And then, looking at the matter merely in a pe- 
cuniary point of view, just see how well Murray re- 
pays the various ten shillings and sixpences invested 
in him. By his aid, even in this short ramble of four 
weeks through Switzerland and down the Rhine, I 
have seen no less than four " magnificent views," 
each of which " is worth the journey from England 
to see," that is, at a low estimate, one hundred dol- 
lars apiece, two that " repay one for crossing the At- 
lantic," and of course, at the present high rates of 
passage couldn't be called less than three hundred 
dollars each, three or four others (say three) that are 
unrivalled, and therefore must be worth as much as 
the preceding, but to be moderate we will call them 
two hundred dollars each and see how the bill foots 
up:— 



EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. . 251 

Four landscape views of Alps, etc., $100 each, $400 
Two " " " at 300 " 600 

Three " " " 200 " 600 



Total, $1,600 

This, too, not including sundry smaller affairs, cas- 
cades, waterfalls, glaciers, picturesque hamlets, etc. 
etc., which, at the most liberal discount for "taking 
the lot," would probably swell the amount to two 
thousand dollars at least, and all, be it remembered, 
in four weeks. 

As I had firmly resolved never to return to Amer- 
ica till I had seen Holland, I left my companions at 
Cologne and went on down the Rhine to Utrecht 
and Middleburgh and Amsterdam, in which, as well 
as the other Dutch cities, I climbed up all the high 
towers, resolutely disregarding the complaints of my 
pedal extremities, and thus probably saw as much 
of this delectable country as most travellers do, at 
least I saw it all several times over, and very refresh- 
ing to the eye is the tame, regular, chequered scenery 
of Holland, the straight rows of trees and the placid 
canals, after the wild, ragged, irregular, rough-and- 
tumble landscapes of Switzerland. After all the 
ecstasies people go into over the picturesque, roman- 
tic, and sublime, give me a good, honest Dutch 
landscape, with some fat cows and a few rows of 
cabbages in it. 



252 ME. DUNN BROWNE'S 



CHAPTER LVI. 

EEPOSES IN HOLLAND. 

I have just returned from Broek, " the cleanest 
village in the world," containing twelve hundred in- 
habitants, situate about five miles (or three hours 
ride in a Dutch canal boat) from Amsterdam. It is 
indeed a very clean place, but a strict regard for truth 
compels me to say that I saw considerable dirt in 
one of the cabbage gardens, and the gate handle of 
one backyard was not scoured to that degree of 
brightness I had been led to expect. Moreover, in 
the only stable that I visited, the cows' tails were 
not tied up to the beams above with blue ribbons, as 
I had read in the accounts of travellers, and the in- 
quiries which I instituted on this point have resulted 
in convincing me that this is a mere pleasant exag- 
geration indulged in by those waggish narrators, and 
bv no means a literal fact. The streets are not 
streets at all, but neat, little, brick-paved walks wind- 
ing about in various directions among the houses, 



EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 253 

sometimes in front and sometimes in the rear, con- 
fined by curiously-wrought wooden or iron fences, or 
perhaps here and there by a hedge closely clipped 
and. carved into fantastic shapes. The houses have 
no resemblance to one another, and are so difficult to 
be described and to get a proper idea of when de- 
scribed, that I shall leave them to your imagination, 
assuring you that whatever pictures you may form 
to yourselves of them will be certain to be totally 
wrong. The trees are short, chubby, and symmetrical, 
having a decidedly artificial appearance, educated 
quite too much like many persons of my acquaintance. 
The men seemed to be all absent from the town. 
The women had their dresses pinned up behind, every 
one a scrubbing brush in her hand, and a pail of 
soap-suds by her side. The children were just let 
out from school, and ranging themselves in rows 
each side of the way, cap in hand, slate under the 
arm and satchel on the back, saluted me with great 
gravity and politeness. Obtained the guidance of a 
pair of them, little blue-eyed, white-aproned girls, 
with caps on such as my grandmother used to wear, 
who conducted me to a large dairy, where I was in- 
itiated into all the curious mysteries of Dutch 
cheese-making by a damsel as fair and round, and 
solid, as any cheese of them all. Returned to my 



254 MR. DUNN BROWNE'S 

canal boat in a state of great self-satisfaction at hav- 
ing seen so much of this paragon of Dutch towns, 
and rode dreamily back to Amsterdam, seated by 
the side of the huge skipper, who only opened his 
mouth to emit smoke, and directed all the move- 
ments of his crew, (i. e. the helmsman and the boy 
who rode the horse,) by waving his pipe. 

The canals hereabouts are ten or fifteen feet higher 
than the adjacent country, and it is curious enough 
to see the canal boats in the distance, and even 
sometimes a large ship with its masts all standing, 
gliding along on a level with the housetops, plunging 
into a group of windmills or haystacks, and bringing 
up at last on the roofs apparently of a remote vil- 
lage. 

Amsterdam is an amphibious city, half land and 
two-thirds water ; most of the streets being canals 
and drawbridges ; very nearly another Venice with- 
out the gondolas and faded palaces and historical 
associations ; in short, a neat, clean, Dutch Venice 
built of bricks and colored tiles. It is the finest brick- 
built city in the world without a doubt. Nothing 
but seeing can give you any idea of the wonderful 
variety of beautiful and picturesque forms into 
which Dutch architects will contrive to pile up 
bricks. No two houses will be alike, each will be a 



EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 255 

study of itself, and yet there will be a general resem- 
blance enough to preserve the proper uniformity of 
a street. I wandered about Amsterdam nearly a 
week without ever getting tired of its streets and ca- 
nals, of its clean, healthy-looking people, (it is my 
deliberate opinion, which I am prepared to defend to 
the last extremity, that the Dutch are the handsome- 
est and the politest race of people on the face of the 
globe,) of its plump jolly ships, its warehouses, 
wharves, bridges, and dykes, of its tall spires, huge 
organs, fat palaces, and resplendent picture galleries. 
Leaving Amsterdam, your correspondent attended a 
festival at Haarlem where seventy-five thousand 
Dutchmen were assembled to do honor to the mem- 
ory of Coster, an ingenious ancestor of theirs, whom 
they persist in calling the true, first, and sole inventor 
of the art of printing, to the utter exclusion of the 
claims of Guttemburg, who, not being a Dutchman, 
of course could n't have hit upon the invention. 
Afterwards, we proceeded to the Hague, where is 
the finest park of beech trees that can be imagined, 
and Paul Potter's celebrated picture of the Bull, to 
say nothing about a few palaces and kings and 
princes that we hadn't time to visit: buried our- 
selves one day in the dead old city of Leyden, of 
Pilgrim memory, and passed through Rotterdam on 



256 mr. dunn beowne's 

out of Holland into Belgium to the good city of Ant- 
werp, where is the only really admirable picture 
Rubens ever painted, the "Descent from the Cross," 
as well as many other notable things, and whence 
we shall soon embark for " Merrie England." 



EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 257 



CHAPTER LVII. 

UTTERLY DISREGARDS THE CONSEQUENCES. 

[Mr. B. bids an affecting farewell to his Passport as the chalky cliffs of England 
come again in sight.] 

Pooe, torn, ragged, patched, and mended, 
Thou hast been to me a friend most dear,, 

But now 's thy faithful service ended, 

For at length old England's shores are near> 

Thine eagle oft hath been my guard 

Amidst officials fat and saucy : 
Full oft the soldier grim and hard 

Hath quailed before the name of Marcy. 

Police no more shall scrutinize 

Thy vises, stamps, " permis de sejour," 

No more "gens d'armes" o'er thee look wise,. 
Thou hast received thy last " bon pour." 

My purse for thee shall bleed no more, 

Grim sentinel shall not harass, 
Besetting me at gate and door 

With that provoking, " Please Sir, your Pass." 
17 



258 MR. DUNN BROWNE'S 

How many sovereigns owe thee thanks ! 

Full oft the Pope on thee hath fed, 
Napoleon's had from thee some francs, 

For Bomba thou hast freely bled. 

Thou'st greased Emmanuel's moustache, 
As well as lined the Sultan's pockets, 

Thou'st helped Franz Joseph cut a dash, 
And paid for Leopold's festive rockets. 

From thee and from thy fellows, too, 
The Duke of Tuscany extracts his 

Most important revenue ; 

You are his best and surest taxes. 

Of every tongue and language, on thy back, 

Thou hast, I do believe, a scrawl : 
'T would puzzle Elihu, the " Learned Black- 

..Smith's" self, I ween, to read them all. 

'O'er thee hath many a Dutchman sputtered, 

Italian raved and Saxon swore, 
il Sacre " full oft the Frenchman's uttered, 

Thou'st vexed the German's patience sore- 
Wise men and fools have o'er thee pondered, 

Drunken men and sober, men of sense and asses, 
Sane men, men whose wits had wandered, 

Men with glass eyes, men with eye-glasses. 



EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 259 

Some -who would hold thee upside down, 

And some again who would n't ; 
Some who could read thy name, " Dunn Browne," 

And others still who could n't. 

To be sure it has been a terrible bore, 

A year to carry thee ever about me, 
But I fear that it would have troubled me more, 

To have started away without thee. 

Go, then, my Pass, hide thee in peace 
'Way down in the depths of my valise ; 

Ah, well, my dear Muse, if any one else is wait- 
ing for you, don't let me detain you. I am aware 
that such verses must cause you. considerable lacera- 
tion of nerves, so I- won't trouble you again if I can 
possibly help it. That's the way the sea acts upon 
me ; instead of making me sick it makes me produce 
sickly rhymes. 

This is London, is it? Of course it is. I know it 
by the whole five of my senses, especially those of 
taste and smell; I know it by the thick cloud of 
black smoke, by the grim, sooty houses, by the hor- 
rible swearing of the sailors and porters, by the 
crowding and hustling, the universal atmosphere of 
fog and of freedom, of industry and incivility, of 
comfort and grumbling. I know it by the everlast- 



260 MR. DUNN BROWNE'S 

ing thunder of the 'buses and drays, and by the mur- 
mur of the perpetual crowd of foot-passengers ; I 
know it by the " haitches " and the " wes " of the 
cockney pronunciation, by the cut of the whiskers, 
by the ruddy faces and portly forms, signs of health 
and unlimited beer,, I know it by the dark dome of 
St. Paul's, (which I saw once before during the three 
weeks of my former visit to London,) by the Monu- 
ments, by beautiful Westminster Abbey, and the 
gingerbread work of the Houses of Parliament. In 
fact I am quite certain that it is London, and that is 
enough. 



EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 261 



CHAPTER LVIIL 

MERRIE ENGLAND. 

England is the only country in the world that is 
all finished, perfectly complete, the scaffoldings taken 
down and the rubbish picked up. There are no 
odds and ends lying around loose, no out of the way 
corners where the work has been slighted, nothing 
any where but will bear the closest inspection. It 
doesn't make any difference which direction you 
take for an excursion into the country. Go down 
to the south-west to the region of Plymouth and 
Exeter and Bath, and you will think yourself in the 
loveliest part of England and of the world. Go on 
up to Stratford on Avon and Warwick Castle and 
Kenilworth, and you will find it hard to believe such 
beauty can exist anywhere out of paradise besides. 
Come back to the immediate vicinity of London, to 
Windsor Park, Richmond Hill, Hampton Court, or 
off again to Derbyshire, visit Chatsworth and Mat- 
lock Bath, go down into fertile Kent, or away north 



262 MB. DUNN BROWNE'S 

to the Cumberland Lakes, or across into Yorkshire, 
or take the opposite direction and roam a week over 
the Isle of Wight, go anywhere, take any train, or if 
you miss that, take any other train and stop at any 
station, or better still get on the top of any stages 
coach and ride till it stops. You can't go amiss. 
Wherever you go you will be thankful you took that 
particular direction rather than any other. Go by 
rail, 'bus, coach, or cab, but don't take a private con- 
veyance. If you allow any fat, smooth-faced inn- 
keeper to seduce you into hiring a one-horse " trap " 
to take you across the country at " a shilling a mile," 
in the first place you will find that it is an incredible 
number of miles to the place you wish to reach, then 
again you will come to a toll-gate with a sixpence 
to pay every two or three miles, you will have a six- 
pence to pay for "'olding your hoss" at every place 
you stop, you will have an unexpected demand made 
at the end of your journey of three-pence a mile for 
the driver, and lastly you will have the consolation of 
being passed on the road by a coach which left the 
place you started from about an hour after you, 
bound for the same place with yourself, and which 
would have carried you there in half the time at one 
fifth of the price. I speak from experience. Be- 
ware of " traps," especially of " one-horse traps." 



EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 263 

Then, when you stop at a place, go by all means to 
an inn and not to a hotel. They have the best inns 
and the worst hotels in England of any country in 
the world. The stiff staring hotels are fast crowd- 
ing out the good old-fashioned, straggling, many-ga- 
bled inns, so that soon, alas, England will be worse 
than Egypt to travel in, but so long as a single inn of 
the old style remains, don't fail to take up your quar- 
ters there if you. wish to know what real comfort is. 
The most astonishing thing about England is the 
immense expenditure of money everywhere, the rich- 
ness, solidity, and expense of all the public works and 
the private buildings also, even in the remotest nooks 
and corners of the island. ] never saw real estate so 
condensed, so much of it occupying so little ground. 
I never saw gold spread out so thickly over the whole 
face of a country. Every thing you see appears to be 
steeped in money, fed on money, made of money, 
representative of a vast money value. The fog looks 
as if it would coin up into dollars, the crops waving 
over the fields are rich golden harvests, the sheep 
and cattle grazing in the pastures are fat, solid, peri- 
patetic bank-notes, every acre of ground is a bursting 
purse of gold, the very roads are macadamized with 
pounded golden ore, the sturdy old oaks seem to 
have been nourished with the true " circulating me- 



264 me. dunn Browne's 

dium," the houses stand up firm and strong as if no 
amount of mortgages could have the slightest effect 
upon them, real estate seems nowhere else so real 
and substantial as here. It is here more than any- 
where else difficult to realize the fact that riches may- 
take to themselves wings and fly away. What 
broad, strong wings would it take to bear away those 
solid stone buildings, those apoplectic factories, those 
broad acres, those rich mines, those inexhaustible 
coal-beds ! Could I charter sufficient wing-power I 
would at least fly away to America with one of the 
beautiful English parks, with its verdant turf and its 
tastefully arranged trees, even if I had to transport 
also a whole skyful of mists and showers to keep it 
fresh and green. I am afraid we can't have, in our 
country, with its bright skies, a real English park, 
any more than they can have one of our glorious 
many-colored autumnal landscapes. But the Eng- 
lish landscape retains its freshness nearly through the 
year. Ours is beautiful a little while in the spring 
and glorious again in the autumn for a few days be- 
fore its death. So the fogs and rains of Old England 
are not without their redeeming features, if such 
things can be said to have features indeed. 



EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 265 



CHAPTER LIX. 



ENGLISH UNIVERSITY TOWNS. 

1 AM going to see at once about getting a Fellow- 
ship in one of the rich old colleges at Oxford or Cam- 
bridge. A nice suite of rooms in one of those jolly 
nooks of halls, with smoothly shaven lawns and 
noble groves to study and take one's pleasure in, with 
cultivated companions and endless stores of books to 
solace one's self withal, with an abundance of lit- 
erary leisure and the best of society, with a wise pro- 
vision against your committing the folly of matri- 
mony, with nothing at all to do, and twelve or fifteen 
hundred dollars a year to do it with, it really strikes 
me that such a path in life as that would present 
about as few thorns and briars as almost any that 
a man can walk in. And yet there is occasionally 
an infatuated son of Adam who will allow some fair 
daughter of Eve to tempt him even from such a 
paradise as this. Such is mankind, since the for- 
bidden fruit was tasted ! 



266 MR. DUNN BROWNE'S 

It was vacation when we visited the university 
towns, and so we had to content ourselves with look- 
ing at the empty hives and the stores of honey that 
had been collected, without seeing the bees, either 
workers or drones, either the " reading " men or the 
" rowing " men. 

The two towns are very nearly of equal beauty. 
The Oxford building material crumbles more easily, 
and hence the old towers and colleges look more 
ancient and venerable, but I cannot help thinking 
Cambridge quite as lovely. King's College Chapel 
at Cambridge is much finer than any thing of the 
kind at Oxford, but the latter again can show the 
most splendid dining hall, and this last is the great 
institution of an English college or any thing else 
that is English. The dinner is the great centre about 
which an Englishman's thoughts and plans all re- 
volve, and when he founds a college, the first thing 
to be attended to, is to provide a magnificent dining 
saloon for its inmates ; the next, a beautiful chapel, 
and if there happen to be any funds left, why, the li- 
braries and professorships, and such minor matters 
may come in for the crumbs, so to speak, that fall 
from the dinner-table. Another curious feature, and 
which shows the exclusiveness of the English charac- 
ter everywhere is, that there is no public room of 



EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 267 

any size connected with either of the universities, 
any more than there is for the accommodation of the 
Lords and Commons in the new Houses of Parlia- 
ment in London, or for any one else's accommoda- 
tion in any other place that I think of now. The 
number of undergraduates in Oxford, or in Cam- 
bridge, is from fifteen hundred to two thousand, and 
the Senate House in each university, where the dig- 
nitaries meet on anniversary occasions to confer 
honorary degrees, where addresses and poems are 
delivered, etc, will not seat more than five hundred 
persons conveniently, and cannot, I should think, 
hold in any way, sitting or standing, a thousand. It 
is only for a few privileged individuals to get access 
to any thing in this country. There is more trouble 
and difficulty, very frequently, in getting in to hear a 
debate in Parliament, than there is in getting elected 
to our Congress, if you are of the right party, that is. 
Nothing is made large enough to hold half the peo- 
ple who want to get into it, or if it is, the admission 
is hedged about with so many annoyances and de- 
lays that you give it up rather than take the trouble. 
Such a simple thing as getting admission to the li- 
brary of the British Museum I couldn't accomplish, 
at least without taking more pains than the thing 
was worth. But we are getting back to London 



268 MR. DUNN BROWNE'S 

again, I see, in obedience to the irresistible townward 
tendency of every thing in England, so perhaps it 
won't be worth while for us to return to Cambridge 
for the sake of visiting together John Milton's mul- 
berry tree in Christ College garden, and one or two 
other interesting things I had thought of taking you 
to see. Let us go to the zoological gardens instead, 
and see the Hippopotamus, for "seeing the elephant" 
is quite out of date in London, and cockneys for 
two or three years past have devoted their zoological 
attention exclusively to the hippopotamus, who is 
much more of a sight, weighing, (though yet com- 
paratively in its infancy.) from two to three tons, and 
opening a mouth like the crater of a volcano, about 
as destructive, too, to the wheat-fields, as any moder- 
ate volcano I ever read of. Perhaps we may as well 
step in also at Madame Tussaud's and see her star- 
ing wax models of the principal murderers, orators, 
warriors, lawyers, kings, and other scourges of human- 
ity, all in the " 'ighest style of hart," the delight and 
pride of the cockneys. Then, to finish up the even- 
ing, we may drop into Evans' Eating Rooms for a 
bit of supper, accompanied by the greatest variety of 
music it was ever your lot to hear and see, a perfect 
jumble of the sentimental and the warlike, the 



EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 269 

pathetic and the funny, the love-madrigal, the Ethi- 
opian minstrel and the " ghost in Hamlet," presented 
by a man dressed half in scale armor and half in a 
shroud, half Hamlet and half ghost. 



270 mr. dunn browne's 



CHAPTER LX. 

THE JEDBURG BORDER GAMES. 

Attracted by the announcement, on a huge pla- 
card pasted hard by the entrance of Melrose Abbey, 
that the ancient and honorable athletic games of the 
Scottish border were to be celebrated at Jedburg, 
-on the young Marquis of Mid-Lothian's birthday, 
my friend, " William the Conqueror," and myself 
crowded Abbotsford into a short morning pedes- 
trian excursion, and at nine o'clock wedged ourselves 
into an overloaded special train which was " drag- 
ging its slow length " along to the appointed 
scene of the sports. Our old anaconda having 
disgorged its thousand victims, happy in our escape, 
we wended our way through the crooked streets 
of the straggling town, which was all gay with 
flags and banners and bonnie lassies streaming 
with ribbons ; past the old abbey, which allowed 
a few smiles of sunlight to play across its dilapi- 



EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 271 

dated red sand-stone countenance, as if in honor of 
the great occasion ; away on to a pretty, modest hill, 
all blushing with heather, where some thousands of 
people, mostly of the laboring classes, but well 
dressed and very well behaved, were assembled to 
witness the contests. A quadrangle, perhaps five 
hundred feet by three hundred, with ranges of seats 
rising above each other all around, with a band of 
music under a canopy at one end, and a large tent 
for the accommodation of the performers at the 
other, occupied the brow of the hill. Hundreds 
of booths and tents were erected outside for the 
refreshment of the spectators. Just within the 
inclosure, hung on the little banners, were the prizes 
to be awarded to the victors in the various games, 
consisting mostly of gay articles of dress and or- 
namental wear, coats of many colors, embroidered 
vests, Highland caps, plaids, a nice pair of boots 
for the victor in the foot-race, a richly embroidered 
girdle valued at fifty dollars for the best wrestler, 
etc., which articles, when awarded, were exhibited 
to the admiring crowd on the persons of the victors, 
with a great air of triumph and exultation. Within 
the quadrangle strutted the umpires and judges and 
marshals, looking as wise as owls, as dignified as 
donkeys, and as proud as turkey-cocks. 



272 MR. DUNN BROWNE'S 

The performances going on at our arrival were 
feats of leaping, the perpendicular and the hori- 
zontal leap, the " hop, step, and jump," and various 
other varieties. Next came wrestling by little boys, 
some of whom were not more than six years old, 
and it was altogether as pretty a display of science 
and agility as the day had to afford us. The gravity 
with which the little fellows shook hands to show 
that they bore no malice, the magnanimity they dis- 
played in raising a fallen foe, and the stoicism they 
manifested to the praises of the spectators, were 
lessons in human nature. The victor was a little 
ten year old, who spread out half a dozen larger 
boys just as fast as they could come on and take 
hold. The next performance was a smart shower 
of rain, which was thinly attended by the spectators, 
most of whom preferred a wetting up of a different 
kind in the booths above referred to. Then suc- 
ceeded feets of hurling, cannon balls of various. sizes 
being the projectiles used. A slight, consumptive 
looking youth carried away the first prize in this 
sturdy contest, having thrown the fifty-six pound 
cannon ball nearly thirty feet, if I understood the 
announcement correctly. The interest of the crowd 
now became greatly excited in a hurdle race. The 
competitors, about a dozen in number, ran out from 



EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 273 

the inclosure three hundred yards, leaping six hur- 
dles or bars four feet high, in their course, and then 
returned over the same ground. It was quite a 
spirited affair, the victor passing no less than three 
men in the last thirty feet, and coming in less than 
half a yard before the favorite, who had kept the 
lead from the first, and was a famous runner from 
England. 

After a recess of half an hoar for rest, (which op- 
portunity was faithfully improved by the rain,) we 
gathered again together to witness the grand affair 
of the day, the wrestling match, the most famous 
champions of this time-honored border sport being 
gathered from all quarters. The wrestlers wore 
flesh-colored tights and stockings only ; clasped 
hands together behind each other's shoulders, one 
arm over, the other under, and the contest was 
usually very quickly decided. Some of the feats 
of strength were tremendous. A noted young 
champion, Scott of Carlisle, pulled from his feet a 
gigantic antagonist, nearly twice his own weight, 
whirled him completely round in the air twice, and 
left him gently extended on his back. First, there 
were many separate single matches, and then one 
grand trial where winners were" matched with winners, 
and the last man up was to be the victor. Finally, 

18 



274 ME. DUNN erowne's 

Scott of Carlisle, who had thrown every opponent 
in a long series of encounters, and a young shepherd 
from Jedburg, who had been successful against all 
comers, in a series alternating with the first, were 
- brought into the lists for the last decisive struggle, 
to decide which should be champion. The shep- 
herd, a tall lad, rough and ungainly, but of tremen- 
dous strength, was hitherto unknown to fame, and 
now trembled with hope and fear as the final trial 
approached. Scott, slight, but a perfect model of 
manly strength and grace, came smilingly and care- 
lessly forward, looking really as if he would be glad 
to have the shepherd boy gain the prize. They 
shook hands, the heralds waved a little yellow flag 
over the head of each, and proclaimed their name 
and residence, then, amidst a breathless stillness in 
that vast and excited crowd, the combatants threw 
their arms about each other as if for a fraternal em- 
brace. Scott experienced much difficulty in bringing 
his hands together about the burly shoulders of his 
tall opponent, but succeeding at last in clasping them, 
he bowed that huge frame together in a grasp like 
that of a tiger seizing a buffalo, and in the twinkling 
of an eye extended him on the sand with face to 
the sky. But the valiant young shepherd, gathering 
courage from defeat, claimed his right to demand 



EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 275 

three trials instead of one, in the last contest, and in 
the next encounter, seized Scott in his long arms, 
with a strength perfectly irresistible, lifted him from 
the ground like a baby to his breast, and laid him 
gently on his back. And the third trial, too, after a 
long and doubtful struggle between superior skill 
and superior strength, was decided against the re- 
doubted Scott, and Jemmy Davidson, the raw shep- 
herd boy, whom nobody knew as a wrestler, re- 
ceived the first prize, and was declared the champion 
of all the border. The joy of the crowd, especially 
those from Davidson's own neighborhood, was in- 
tense, and their enthusiasm unbounded. They 
hugged him and kissed him, carried him upon their 
shoulders, and shouted his name till they were 
hoarse. His good-natured antagonist joined his 
congratulations to those of the crowd, and seemed in 
nowise cast down by his defeat. 

The rest of the games, the blindfold hurdle race, 
the jumping in sacks, the wheelbarrow race and oth- 
er comical sports which concluded the day, we did 
not stop to see, for the day, which had been unusu- 
ally fair for the British Isles, having only indulged in 
two showers and three drizzles, about this time re- 
lapsed into a settled rain, and we took the cars for 
Edinburgh, whither, I suppose, you wish we had 
started a good deal sooner. 



276 mr. dunn Browne's 



CHAPTER LXI. 



EDINBORO THE LITERARY. 



This " modern Athens " has really quite a resem- 
blance to her Grecian prototype, even if we say 
nothing about the Parthenon out on Calton Hill 
which she has commenced erecting and which, with 
its dozen finished Doric columns, is already becoming 
a ruin that likens it still more to its great model. 
The hills about Edinboro are a little like those 
around Athens, the Edinboro Castle is something 
like the Acropolis, and there is a similar contrast be- 
tween the old and the new buildings, between the 
ancient and the modern towns of Edinboro and 
of Athens. 

The old and the new cities of Edinboro are on op- 
posite sides of a valley, and are still more opposite in 
character than in situation. One is as shabby as a 
New England deacon's every-day hat, and the other 
as clean and prim as his go-to-meeting one. They 
do all the dirty work, perform all the business, build 



EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 277 

the sooty furnaces, make the noxious gases and en- 
gage in the every-day drudgery in the Old Town, 
and then go over into the New Town Sundays and 
holidays to church and to enjoy themselves. The 
Old Town is full of narrow, filthy lanes, which would 
be abated as nuisances in the most miserable Arab 
or Turkish or (worst of all) Italian city. The houses, 
tottering eleven-storied abominations, frequently fall. 
One had just crushed half a dozen people the day 
before we arrived. But the New City, with its broad 
streets, handsome squares, houses all of hewn stone, 
stately monuments, and rich churches, is as fine as 
gold and good taste and the absence of all business 
can make it. 

Holy rood Palace is interesting especially as show- 
ing what poor, miserable, ridiculous, accommoda- 
tions kings and queens had to put up with in former 
times. Why, Queen Mary's apartments in the shab- 
by old corner tower at Holyrood are not fit for a 
modern poet's garret. Queen's horses are better sta- 
bled now-a-days. Her supper room, where she was 
sitting at tea when Rizzio's murderers entered, is n't 
large enough for a tea-table to be spread in. She 
must have sat with her cup in her hand, if indeed 
she was drinking tea, I forget precisely the circum- 
stances. The door of her dressing-room is so low 



278 # mr. dunn Browne's 

that she must have stooped to enter it, and the rest 
of her rooms are built altogether too much after the 
snail-shell order of architecture to suit the enlarged 
ideas of any modern queen. Her entire suite of apart- 
ments made into one, the whole second floor of the 
tower which she occupied, with the partitions 
knocked out, would but just contain a lady in the 
present full dress, and as for getting her in or out 
through any of the doors, it would be a ridiculous 
impossibility. 

The Gothic " Memorial to Walter Scott," of free- 
stone, two hundred feet high, is the finest monument 
I have ever seen, which is not saying much to be 
sure, for monuments are generally ugly things and 
insensibly induce us to associate some of their own 
deformity with the character of those they commem- 
orate, thus serving perhaps as useful warnings 
against ambition, but for all purposes of ornament to 
a city, a very useless expenditure. I put it to your 
conscience now, my dear reader, to tell me candidly, 
if you can say, on approaching a strange city, which 
are monuments and which are chimnies. I am free 
to acknowledge, (in confidence,) that I can't distin- 
guish the difference, -except that those tall, slender 
chimnies, of the steam manufactories and the gas 
works, seem much more elegantly shaped, and have 



EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 279 

in addition graceful wreaths of smoke adorning their 
summits, which the monuments and columns cannot 
boast. And yet I never heard of a city's being proud 
of the number and beauty of its gas-chimnies, that I 
recollect. These remarks must be understood as 
applying to monuments in general- and not to the 
Scott memorial, which is really an ornament for any 
town to be proud of. 

These Scotch are a very nice people, both sensible 
and good-natured, who make you feel at home 
among them, just as the English, unless you have 
a hatful of introductions, make you feel that you are 
not at home, and several other nations I could name 
make you you wish you were at home. 

It has rained so constantly and perseveringly 
during our stay in Scotland, that we have confined 
our excursions to a simple crossing the country by 
way of Stirling, Callander, Lochs Katrine and Lo- 
mond, Dumbarton, and Glasgow. We were driven •. 
from Stirling to the Trossachs, past Bannockburn, 
over Allan water, and within sight of several roman- 
tic castles, by a poetical, red-nosed coachman, who 
spouted Scott's poetry the whole distance, and what 
with the fatigue of listening to him, and holding an 
umbrella over several unprotected females during a S 
heavy shower, and supporting a hysterical lassie over 



2S0 MR. DUNN BROWNE'S 

all the bad places in the road with my encircling arm, 
I assure you, nothing but a strong sense of duty 
done, and the gratitude with which she pressed my 
hand as we descended from the top of the coach, 
could have adequately rewarded me for that day of 
sacrifice. The Scotch lakes are so so, and Glasgow 
is a tolerably well-built city. 



EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 281 



CHAPTER LXII. 



IN AN IRISH JAUNTING CAR. 



We have been in Ireland just long enough to ascer- 
tain that it really is inhabited by Irishmen, real gen- 
uine Paddies as ever voted the " Dimmycratic " ticket 
six times in a day at a New York city election. At 
the Killarney Races which we attended one rainy 
day, near the celebrated lakes of the same name, 
were gathered four or five thousand of the peasantry 
of that district, every man " with a stick in his fist," 
and a brave show they made of it. I have seen 
nothing that reminded me of America so much since & 
I left it. The countenances seemed familiar, I could 
recognize about half the faces as having been seen 
before. I should have expected that nearly all of 
them would affirm, upon inquiry, that they were 
" thrue native-born 'Merikan citizens." Fifty years 
ago there could n't have been such a gathering as 
met at the races, without a regular " faction fight," 
but the belligerent spirit of the race is getting much 



282 mr. dunn Browne's 

calmed down of late. I saw no fight that day, nor 
indeed any day of our week's trip in Ireland, though 
one fiery little fellow, in the cars as we were ap- 
proaching the Cove of Cork, had to be prevented by 
his friends from demolishing a couple of Italians, 
who had the impudence to doubt his assertion, that 
an Irish soldier could easily whip three of any other 
nation on the globe. 

The country from Dublin to Cork is mostly level 
wheat and potato land, agreeably diversified with 
peat-bogs, and under poor cultivation, at least com- 
pared with England and Scotland. The stream of 
English gold, however, which has been turned upon 
the country of late years, is fast changing the bogs 
into meadows, redeeming the waste places, making 
the desert blossom with beautiful fields of grain and 
vegetables. There is no sort of irrigation that fertil- 
izes like a stream of gold. It is a manure that is 
adapted to all soils, and to seasons wet and dry. A 
thick coating of it, whether ploughed in or applied 
as a top-dressing, is pretty sure to tell on almost any 
kind of crop, and if I were about to commence farm- 
ing on a large scale in any country, I can think of 
nothing I should value more highly than a large ac- 
cumulation of this admirable yellow dust to apply 
as a fertilizer. 



EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 283 

The conveyances of every country are peculiar^ 
but the Irish Jaunting Car is the most peculiar and 
original, the drollest, craziest piece of locomotive fur- 
niture ever invented. It is eminently Irish ; every 
fragment of it (and it is all made up of fragments,) 
smacks of the brogue ; it seems a ridiculous bull to 
get into it at all. A shaky oblong box, mounted 
upon two rickety wheels about three feet apart, un- 
folding in the middle, lengthwise, into two seats 
that hang over outside the wheels, where you sit in 
pairs, back to back, with your rollicking driver in 
front, flogging his rawboned horse to the top of his 
speed, turning sharp corners, plunging through the 
crowded streets of a city, and rattling over the rough 
roads in the country, at the same headlong pace, if 
you can think of any more ridiculously danger- 
ous method of getting over the ground, I am sure it 
must be an Egyptian donkey-racing you are thinking 
of, and I can't quite agree with you there. And 
then the inimitable politeness with which your Jehu 
touches his hat and hopes "your honor is satisfied 
with the dhrivin' sure," and will "bestow a small 
thrifle to spind in dhrinkin' your health," is quite ir- 
resistible. 

Moreover I'm thinking that if you should encoun- 
ter that little girl, who s*old us some bog-oak orna- 



284 MR. DUNN BKOWNE'S 

ments and laces in Dublin, you would be pretty cer- 
tain to invest a trifle in her wares, if there is any 
soft spot in you where the most " deludherin' " flat- 
tery can enter. Nearly all the Irish must have made 
a pilgrimage to kiss the " Blarney stone," and the 
Irish beggar is the one of all others to whom you 
give with the least compunction. 

Two or three days in the noble city of Dublin and 
two more in the beautiful vicinity of Cork, with a 
hurried glimpse of the lovely Killarney Lakes, was 
all the time we could afford to the Emerald Isle. 
Our return was by steamer to Holyhead, thence by 
rail across the wonderful tubular bridge to Bangor, 
then an excursion to Caernarvon Castle and Snow- 
don, then a Sabbath spent in sleepy old Chester, 
hearing a sleepy old bishop preach in the sleepy old 
Cathedral. It is astonishing what an amount of dull 
preaching one hears in England. Ideas are as care- 
fully excluded from the pulpit as if they were bomb- 
shells with the fuse lighted and liable to explode at 
once. There is more life and energy and thought 
and nourishment in the poorest sermon I ever heard 
in a New England pulpit than in the best I heard 
(with two exceptions in London) during a constant 
attendance of three months, in England. An Eng- 
lishman doesn't like to be* startled into any thought 



EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 285 

while sitting on the soft pew-cushions of his old Par- 
ish Church. The peculiarities of Chester, as every- 
body knows, are, its old wall, carefully preserved as 
a promenade for the citizens, a beautiful elliptical 
race-course just outside the wall, for all the world 
like an ancient circus, and especially its system of 
quaint porticos along the second story of the prin- 
cipal streets. This last feature is a very odd one, as 
the style and height of the portico varies with almost 
every house, and drawbridges are frequently thrown 
over the 'cross-streets to prevent a break in the cov- 
ered promenade. It is a capital idea for rainy days 
and for the children's romping. Many of the houses 
are curiously carved, and, one has on its front the 
date 1003, which is generally believed in Chester to 
be authentic. 



286 MR. DUNN BROWNE'S 



CHAPTER LXIII. 

ANOTHER TASTE OF THE ERINE. 

On leaving such a country as England, Liverpool 
is a capital place to embark, because whatever re- 
grets one may feel in going away from the country, 
taken as a whole, probably no person ever visited 
Liverpool without being glad to get away from it as 
soon as possible. And the Steamer Companies 
seem to sympathize with this feeling in their passen- 
gers, for the vessels start with great punctuality at 
the precise advertised time of sailing. At nine 
o'clock A. M., August 27th, 1856, (the anniversary 
of my sailing from New York, outward bound,) we 
embarked, with about three hundred other passen- 
gers, on board the Canadian steamer " Canadian " 
for Quebec. We selected this as the most favorable 
season in the whole year to cross the Atlantic, after 
the icebergs were melted away and before the equi- 
noctial storms came on, but as a punishment for our 
presumption in making his moods a matter of calcu- 



EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 287 

lation, Old Atlantic brewed up for our benefit one of 
the strongest and bitterest storms he has concocted, 
summer or winter, for years, and poured it out upon 
us all the way over. « Immense number of babies 
on board. Squalls ahead," remarked the sententious 
Isham, after a brief exploration of the cabin. The 
prediction proved too true. The voice of infantile 
wailing was never entirely silent through the whole 
passage. We all felt like fathers of families and 
picked up the children out of the scuppers, when a 
big wave washed them off their legs, without stop- 
ping a moment to think whether they were ours or 
somebody's else. 

Perpetual motion was the order of the day, and 
the night too, for things animate and inanimate. 
At dinner, plates flew in our faces, knives and forks 
danced about tumultuously with coquettish spoons 
for partners, fat tumblers nodded roguishly to sharp 
vinegar-cruets who jerked their heads stiffly in re- 
sponse, slender wine-glasses tossed themselves off to 
the health of rich soup-tureens who overflowed in 
greasy acknowledgments, legs of mutton, joints of 
beef and roast geese plumped themselves into our 
laps, " help yourself to potatoes," was a superfluous 
exhortation, the vegetables invited themselves on to 
your plate and into your napkin, every thing went 



G 



288 MR. DUNN BROWNE'S 

on the self-acting principle, and your success in mak- 
ing a dinner depended on your skill in stabbing vi- 
( ands with a fork as they flew past. After dinner it 
was much the same. Ladies rushed distractedly 
(and distractingly) into our arms, children tumbled 
promiscuously under our feet. , " Harum scarum," 
" helter skelter," " topsy turvy " and such like words 
of Latin Dutch and Anglo-Saxon origin, are the only 
words to express the state of things on that voyage. 
Our vessel was a great cradle that rocked us unceas- 
ingly, anywhere but to sleep. Or perhaps it was 
more like a great churn where we, the cream of sev- 
eral nations, were shaken up together incessantly, in 
the hope of our " coming " at last. The " Impetu- 
ous " declared that it was more than any thing else, 
like the whale's belly in which Jonah once took a 
cruise, but none of us took any notice of that sugges- 
tion, ascribing it to his peculiar feelings as he lay 
tossing about in his berth looking rather pale. 

The beard of our " William the Conqueror " had 
now attained such an enormous growth, that we 
used to hoist him on deck, as a sail to steady the 
ship in the rough weather, and take a reef in the 
beard with a shawl, or take him, in altogether, when 
the captain thought it unsafe to spread too much 
canvas. Neglecting once this precaution, a tremen- 



EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 289 

dous wave, which had somehow got astray, came 
tumbling over the stern, deluging the " Conqueror " 
and several friends, besides nearly sweeping them 
overboard as it retired. " What a narrow escape ! " 
exclaimed one of the bystanders, as soon as he could 
recover from his astonishment so as to find words. 
" Humph, call that an escape, do you, then I just 
hope you will meet with the next instead of me," 
growled our gasping monarch, as he shook half a 
hogshead of brine from his garments and went down 
the hatchway the source of as many streams as a 
melting glacier. 

A row of splendid icebergs stretching across from 
Newfoundland to Labrador, like ghostly sentinels to 
challenge our approach, were the first land we saw 
on the Western Continent. (Green Erin was the 
last we saw of the Eastern Hemisphere, which ac- 
counts for the bull in the previous sentence.) They 
look like frozen clouds and are much more beautiful 
objects than I expected to find them, especially after 
being so greatly disappointed in the miserable, 
sloppy, dirty Swiss glaciers. Somehow I had always 
associated icebergs and glaciers together in my mind, 
but they are no more alike than clean linen and dirty . 
linen, or a boy that has been eating molasses candy 

and the same boy after his face has been washed. 

19 



290 mr. dunn browne's 

Both have beautiful blue crevices and caverns in them, 
which look in the distance like bits of congealed sky, 
and are doubtless the abode of the ice-fairies. Some 
of these ice-mountains that we passed, were, I should 
think, four or five hundred feet high and perhaps a 
half-mile in circuit, all of them aground, poor things, 
and looking piteously at our Steamer, as if expecting 
us to tow their old helpless hulks out to sea 
again. We couldn't stop to take any active meas- 
ues for their relief, though our admiration was with- 
out bounds, and we unhesitatingly pronounced them 
the very (ice) cream of all Nature's performances. 

The passage up the St. Lawrence was quite too 
grand to be beautiful. One can't exactly realize that 
he is on a river, when he has to take a telescope to 
make out the houses on either side. We seemed to 
be taking a broad strip of the Atlantic, with his huge- 
waves smoothed out a little, along up with us and not 
till three hundred miles inland did we entirely shake 
off his grasp upon us. The approach to Quebec, 
with the noble Falls of Montmorenci on the right, a 
great river tumbling down out of the sky, and the 
bold highlands all around, is one of the finest scenes 
in the world and a fitting introduction to the glories 
of our Western Hemisphere. 



EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 291 



CHAPTER LXIV. 

EXPERIENCES IN HIS NATIVE LAND. 

Well, it is a hard thing to be obliged to own up 
to, but that unhesitating regard for truth which has 
borne him safely through so many perilous narrations, 
where the temptations to color a little were very 
strong, where almost any one else would have exag- 
gerated more or less, that stern, unflinching historical 
veracity which has been the striking feature of Mr. 
Browne's " Experiences " hitherto, compels him to 
acknowledge, however reluctantly, that he has be- 
come at last " a suspicious character," that he has 
been very nearly arrested as a genteel swindler, that 
at one time the chances seemed dolefully in favor of 
lodging your unfortunate wanderer in a Green 
Mountain jail as the leader of a gang of pickpockets. 
After having passed unscathed through a two months' 
surveillance by the watchful eyes of the Paris police, 
after passing unsuspectedly through the heart of 
Austria, and sustaining the most friendly relations 



292 mr. dunn Browne's 

with the police department of suspicious Vienna, 
after escaping the sack and bowstring, the ear-crop- 
ping and bastinadoing of despotic Turkey, after hav- 
ing ranged unharmed through the whole length of 
Italy, passing under the very nose of King Bomba, 
casting himself as it were right upon the horns of a 
papal bull, and harmlessly braving the horrors of a 
dungeon in Florence and Venice, after having es- 
caped innumerable perils by Arabs and Dutchmen, 
by Cockneys, by Highlanders, and by Hibernians, 
here at last, on his native soil, almost in sight of the 
hills on which his "father feeds his flocks," the 
Green Mountain boys have proved wellnigh too 
many for him. Lend your ears to the plain unvar- 
nished tale. 

On the last day of the State Agricultural Fair at 
Burlington, Mr. Browne was waiting at the steamer 
landing for the arrival of the " Canada," which had 
unfortunately carried off to Whitehall the baggage of 
himself and his friend Isham, (last survivors of the 
original eight who formed our " army in the East,") 
when he gradually became aware of his being the 
object of considerable attention among the crowd 
that was gathering there. Supposing this to be ow- 
ing to his striking personal appearance and to the 
polish acquired by his friction against the aristocratic 



EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 293 

old world, he merely continued his walk, with perhaps 
a slight accession of dignity to his gait. But finding 
the excitement rather on the increase, seeing young 
ladies slily pointing him out to one another with 
their parasols, observing knots of people conversing 
together in whispers, and two, after some consulta- 
tion with the others, coming out of a group towards 
him, a new thought struck Mr. B. " Col. Fremont 
is also a good-looking man and wears a moustache 
and hair ' au naturel.' Can it be that these good 
people suspect they have here the Great Pioneer in 
disguise, and so are sending these two men as a 
committee to ask him to avow hinself? Perhaps 
they won't believe a denial, ascribing it to excessive 
modesty. What a bore it is to be made a lion of 
in spite of one's self!" The two individuals ap- 
proached. The elder, a hard-looking personage, 
with a dreadfully stiff beard of a week's growth? 
opened the conversation. " I say, Mister, are you 
the feller 't sold me a suit of cloze up to the Fair 
ground, this mornin' ? " "A suit of clothes, man, do I 
look like a tailor? These somewhat dilapidated 
garments which I now wear, constitute my whole 
wardrobe at present. When I have any clothes to 
sell you can have them at a bargain, but just now I 
am not in that line." " Never you mind, young man, 



294 mr. dunn Browne's 

what I want to know is this, was you or was you 
not on the Exhibition ground this forenoon ? " To 
be called " young man ! " Mr. B. was indignant, 
and put an abrupt end to the conversation by 
answering sharply, " When I learn what right you 
have to ask me impertinent questions, I will see 
about answering them. Till then I would recom- 
mend you to mind your own business." The two 
departed, the old man muttering, "I'll larn you what 
right I have to ask questions, special quick." 

Mr. B. quietly continued his promenade, being 
most carefully watched lest he should attempt to 
escape before the officers arrived. Several burly men 
soon came down to the landing, who looked as if 
they might be constables, but whether they were or 
not remained a mystery, for, after considerable con- 
sultation and discussion, another committee, headed 
by the same individual who had been spokesman 
before, came to Mr. B. and informed him that there 
had been for several days a gang of pickpockets and 
swindlers in town, committing all manner of depre- 
dations upon the inhabitants and strangers gathered 
at the Fair, and that he, (Mr. B.,) looked so precisely 
like a man who had been selling damaged clothing, 
all that morning, for about ten times its worth, rep- 
resenting the same to be new, just purchased in Bur- 



EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 295 

lington, bat sold because the owner had been robbed 
and couldn't otherwise raise the money to get home, 
which person was supposed also to be the ringleader 
of a gang of thieves, that they had felt bound to take 
measures for apprehending him, (Mr. B.,) but if he 
could give them any references or proofs that he was 
a respectable and well-conducted individual, they 
should be exceedingly sorry to have caused him any 
inconvenience. Mr. B. thought the inconvenience 
was mostly on the other side, and after the verdancy 
they had shown in purchasing clothes the way they 
had described, he was not even surprised that they 
should have taken himself for a rogue. He then 
brought his huge passport and various other formi- 
dable documents to bear upon his adversaries, put 
them to utter silence and confusion, then departed 
in triumph on board the " Canada," which had just 
come up, to search for his baggage. 



296 mr. dunn browne's 



CHAPTER LXV. 

THE BEST, BECAUSE IT IS THE LAST. 

The writer of these preceding sketches, having 
now accomplished his object of comparing various 
other regions with the valley of the Connecticut, 
his own native home, feeling himself fully quali- 
fied to render a decision, accordingly, in the most 
ww-qualified manner, pronounces that the Connec- 
ticut River Valley with its tributaries, is just the 
most beautiful region in the whole world, both 
hemispheres and all the zones included, not except- 
ing any of its five quarters nor even the islands and 
such like smaller fractions, tt is the sweetest smile 
on the whole face of the globe. Set in its frame 
of lovely hills and mountains, it is the finest picture 
Nature ever painted. Since man was driven out 
of Eden, it is the best paradise yet discovered. In 
its fresh spring morning, in its effulgent summer 
noontide, in its gorgeous autumnal sunset hues, and 
in its silvery winter moonlight, it surpasses all other 



EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 297 

most favored climes, each, too, in its own especial 
perfection. The " skies of Italy " are not half so 
" sunny," the banks of the Rhine can't compare in 
variety of beautiful scenery, the Alps can show no 
finer dells and valleys, I doubt if even Holland has 
any more regular cultivated parallelograms than 
some of our broom-corn fields and tobacco patches. 
In taking leave of those who have had the pa- 
tience to pursue these rambling sketches to the end, 
or who have perchance skipped over a wide inter- 
vening space to read the last chapter, it may be well 
to remark, in explanation, that Browne is not the 
real family name of the author. He was originally 
Greene, and in his early years was remarkable for 
a certain ingenuousness and simplicity of character, 
which was perhaps the occasion of his being sub- 
jected to so much of that peculiar experience, which 
teaches the subject of it some rather rough, but 
possibly salutary lessons, scorches as it were his 
verdancy into a sober russet hue, in consequence of 
which experience the writer has, in the lapse of 
years, (without once applying to the legislature for 
a change,) gradually come to be called Browne. In 
short, if he had not been born Greene, very likely 
he would never have been Dunn Browne. 
« If he has occasionally, in these epistles, relapsed 



298 MR. DUNN BROWNE'S 

into that original, unsophisticated simplicity which 
was his normal state of mind, the author hopes to 
obtain the indulgence of his critical readers by the 
candid explanation he has made, as also if he should 
yet once more relapse, yielding to his tenderer feel- 
ings as he attempts to express his gratitude towards 
an old and tried friend, who has steadfastly stood 
by him in all his wanderings and on whom he has 
at times greatly leaned, to pay in short, a debt, 

OWED TO HIS CANE. 

When Eve her first-born son did see, 
She thought no more of grief and pain, 

Nor what a wretch he 'd grow to be, 
But thanked the Lord, and called him " Cain.' 

To Arctic regions lone and cold, 
When Mercy called, nor called in vain, 

Then volunteered a Yankee bold 
In Mercy's cause ; 't was Dr. Kane. 

In southern climes a plant there grows 
That sweetness yields from every vein, 

By Negroes mostly raised, I s'pose, 
This plant I speak of 's Sugar-Cane. 

When Southern Chivalry's valiant son 
A name of glory sought to gain, 



EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 299 

As glory in his section 's won, 
He used his Gutta Percha cane. 

My cane, thou hast no murder done 

Like that first Cain, who Abel slew, 
Nor spent six months without the sun 

With Dr. Kane and his brave crew. 

Like Sugar-cane, will not thy grain 

My cup of coffee sweeten, 
Nor yet like bully Brooks's cane, 

Give unarmed foe a beating. 

But sturdily thou hast upheld me 

Up many a mountain steep ascending, 
And oft right cheerily impelled me 

On dusty road my slow steps wending. 

The monstrous steps of Pyramid 

My puny steps thou 'st made to fit, 
And many a saucy Arab's head 

The while, thou'st been obliged to hit 

'Gainst Bedouin dog and dogs of Bedouins, 
Thou didst thy master's rights maintain, 

Their bark thy bark on their head wins, 
Thinking me to taste, they tasted cane. 

O'er Jordan's stream I've had thine aid, 

Up Carmel, on Mt. Lebanon, 
And when I in the Crimea strayed 

O'er Malakoff and Mamelon. 



300 EXPERIENCES IN FOREIGN PARTS. 

In Greece, thy help was not denied, 
At Athens, scaling Lycobettus, 

Up steep Pentelic's craggy side, 

As -well as climbing sweet Hymettus. 

About Vesuvius' smoking crater, 
O'er Alpine passes, down the Rhine, 

I found thee everywhere so great a 

Help, I bless the day that made thee mine. 

I hope in future years to use thee, 
Yet other rugged mountains climbing, 

I promise never more t' abuse thee, 
With such a lame attempt at rhyming. 






ja 



